Cyberpunk is enjoying a moment on the small screen right now. Amazon is making a Blade Runner TV show, Apple is adapting William Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer into a series, and Netflix has literally brought Cyberpunk itself (the video game franchise) to television. A lot of great recent cyberpunk shows have fallen by the wayside, like Altered Carbon and Prime Video’s one-season wonder The Peripheral. But there have been more successful shows, too, like Arcane and Terminator Zero.
One of the best cyberpunk shows ever made is Aeon Flux, an avant-garde sci-fi adventure from the early-to-mid ’90s. Aeon Flux takes place in a German Expressionist-inspired dystopian future. All that remains of the world is two city-states, separated by a border wall in the middle of a barren wasteland. These two city-states, Monica and Bregna, are populated by clones, robots, and mutants. We follow a dominatrix/spy from Monica as she leads various operations against the powers that be in Bregna, led by her sworn enemy and on-and-off lover.
A live-action reboot of Aeon Flux first went into development way back in 2018, when it was being set up at MTV with Teen Wolf’s Jeff Davis and The Walking Dead’s Gale Anne Hurd on board as executive producers. In 2021, the reboot was moved to Paramount+ under an overall deal that Davis had signed. Davis will serve as the showrunner and direct the pilot episode, which, as of 2023, is still supposedly in the works.
When a project has been stuck in development hell for this long, it’s usually a sign that it’s dead in the water, and it’s not going to happen. But, if the live-action Aeon Flux series ever does get off the ground, and it lives up to its full potential, it’ll be well worth the wait.
A live-action Aeon Flux TV series would be a dream come true for cyberpunk fans. It combines all the best parts of all the best cyberpunk stories. Like Ghost in the Shell, it revolves around a badass heroine in a sprawling futuristic metropolis. Like Arcane, it’s set against the backdrop of a battle between the overworld and the underworld, highlighting the unfair divide between the haves and the have-nots. Like The Matrix, the heroes are acrobatic martial artists who dress in all black.
This wouldn’t be the first live-action adaptation of Aeon Flux. In 2005, Charlize Theron starred in a loose movie adaptation of Aeon Flux. But it wasn’t really an Aeon Flux movie; it wasn’t very faithful to the original series, and it lacked the zippy pacing that made the show so much fun. It won’t take much for Paramount’s TV show to outdo that previous live-action adaptation.
Science fiction is in a great place on television right now. Star Trek might be entering a period of uncertainty, but fiercely original shows like Severance and Pluribus have brought classic sci-fi into the mainstream. Alien: Earth has brought the xenomorphs to television, HBO’s The Last of Us has brought Naughty Dog’s iconic video games to television, and The Orville is a better Star Trek show than any of the official ones right now.
This recent wave of sci-fi successes proves it’s the perfect time for a live-action Aeon Flux series. Audiences are more open than ever when it comes to checking out sci-fi shows, and Aeon Flux is tailor-made to reflect the fraught current climate. If the lead roles are cast right, and the writing maintains a brisk pace, and the VFX team can bring the world of the show to life, then this live-action Aeon Flux show could be the next big thing.