Richard Madden, the actor who portrayed the late Robb Stark on Game of Thrones, has just joined the scifi Amazon pilot Strange New Things. Not “Stranger Things.” “Strange New Things.” No relation. At all. Seriously. We don’t want anyone to make that connection.
To be fair, the plots are quite different, even if the titles are less so. Strange New Things is about a priest (Madden) who leaves his family to travel into space to help spread the word of God on a newly discovered planet. It’s based on the 2014 book The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, which kills any conspiracy theories about Amazon’s series being a total rip-off of the immensely popular Netflix series. It was also first announced as a show in April, months before Stranger Things debuted. Damned if we can’t make the joke, though.
Amazon is planning the series as a 10-episode limited event, assuming they decide to pick up the pilot. It’ll be written by Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies) and directed by Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland).
[TV Line]