For nearly a decade, Hugh Howey's dystopian sci-fi novel Wool has been in development, first as a feature at 20th Century Fox with Ridley Scott and Steve Zaillian attached to produce, and then as an AMC series from LaToya Morgan. Apple has since come to the rescue and picked up the long-gestating project, which will now star Rebecca Ferguson of Mission: Impossible fame.

Apple has given Wool a series order and the show will draw from Howey's bestselling trilogy of post-apocalyptic novels. Other books in the Silo series, as it's known, include Shift and Dust, but there are also several short stories and a graphic novel, as seen below. Though Wool began as an online sensation, Howey has sold nearly half a million hard copies in the U.S. alone, in addition to roughly 2 million ebooks.

The story takes place in a ruined future where toxic air has forced a community to live in a giant underground silo that is hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Ferguson will star as Juliette, an independent and hardworking engineer.

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The series hails from Emmy-nominated writer Graham Yost, who served as a writer on Apple's upcoming event series Masters of the Air, and director Morten Tyldum, who previously directed Apple's excellent limited series Defending Jacob. The two of them will executive produce Wool along with Ferguson and Howey as well as Remi Aubuchon, Nina Jack and Ingrid Escajeda. The series is being produced by AMC Studios, which knows a thing about world-building shows, having also produced The Walking Dead.

I've been writing about Wool for close to 10 years and it always sounded like a really cool project, though I'm glad it's moving forward as a series as opposed to a movie, as an ongoing show gives Tyldum and Yost the canvas to tell Howey's sprawling story in full, and Ferguson makes for a great anchor. Tyldum is best known for directing The Imitation Game, while Yost's past credits include Justified and HBO's Band of Brothers. He's also an executive producer on Apple's upcoming spy series Slow Horses starring Gary Oldman. May it be another Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I say!

As for Ferguson, the Swedish actress will soon be seen in Denis Villeneuve’s star-studded Dune, which hits theaters on Oct. 1. However, you'll be able to catch her before then in Lisa Joy's sci-fi movie Reminiscence, which reunites Ferguson with her Greatest Showman co-star Hugh Jackman. That film will hit theaters and HBO Max simultaneously this August. Ferguson was last seen sucking souls in Doctor Sleep, and she's currently shooting Mission: Impossible 7, which is slated for release next May. To say I'm excited to see that action-packed sequel would be an understatement, to say the least!

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