Andy Weir is producing an audio drama for Audible, Exoplanet

Audible has announced a new original audio story, Exoplanet, which is being written by author Benjamin Percy (The Ninth Metal, The Unfamiliar Garden, The Sky Vault) ) and executive produced by Andy Weir (The Martian, Project Hail Mary). It's a full-cast audio drama that stars Anthony Mackie (The MCU), Ariana DeBose (Scarpetta), John Leguizamo (The Odyssey, Titan AE) in the lead roles, as well as Cherry Jones (Succession, The Handmaid's Tale), Sufe Bradshaw (Veep, VICE), Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete), Ray Porter (narrator for the Project Hail Mary and Bobiverse audiobooks), and Aida Osman (Rap Sh!t), and it will be released on November 5th as an exclusive on the audiobook platform.

It has a wild premise: a starship called Wild Blue Yonder encounters a quantum anomaly, and it crash-lands on a distant, deadly exoplanet. There's a bit of a twist: the crew that survives are scattered on the planet not by distance, but across time. First Officer Becca Bang (DeBose) finds herself stranded in the distant past in a hostile environment, Chief Engineer Jeff Shaw (Mackie) and his virtual assistant (Porter) land in the present, where he's working to figure out how to get home, while Science Officer Logan Bowers (Leguizamo) ends up in the far, future, where the planet is ruled by machines. Moreover, they're not there by accident: some sort of alien intelligence has been waiting for them for their own purposes, and the crew has to figure out how to talk to one another across the centuries.

Weir explained to me in an email that Audible approached him "with an idea to make a sort of 'Andy Weir Presents' series," in which they'd select the stories and authors, with the audiobook company producing a full-cast and heavily-produced version.

"While I'm not the writer, I am a producer and I give notes and feedback, and can insist on changes," Weir told me. The writing duties fell to Percy, who's written not only novels, but comics (he's currently working on Deadpool, Midnight Fantastic Four, and The Punisher for Marvel), as well as audio dramas: he wrote the recent Wolverine shows The Long Night and The Long Trail, as well as Wastelanders: Old Man Starlord.

Exoplanet, Percy explained in an email, had a circuitous route. He was the recipient of a Filmnorth and McKnight Media Artist fellowship in 2023 to produce a short film, and he ended up at the Sundance Film Festival, where he met with a bunch of organizations, including Audible. There, they broached the idea of partnering with Weir. "I jumped at the opportunity," he said, "as a massive fan of The Martian and Project Hail Mary."

From there, he began to figure out how to tell a story in the vein of Weir's work. "I broke down elements that define an Weir story: a disaster that leaves someone stranded in space, smart science-driven problem-solving, communication challenges, good-hearted characters, hope and humor and epic thrills."  

The result was Exoplanet, about the crew of a spaceship scattered throughout time. "I like to Trojan horse one genre inside of another," Percy said, noting that his novel The Ninth Metal both science fiction and a crime family story. "In this case, I’m Trojan-horsing a time travel narrative inside of an Andy Weir space disaster. In this against-all-odds scenario, a terraforming ship crash-lands on an exoplanet and the three survivors end up in splintered timelines…five hundred years apart. They puzzle together ways to communicate and work across time to potentially save themselves…and humanity."

He noted it was a fun project project to work on. "Audio is a particularly fun space to work in, because it exists somewhere between novels and film/TV. You are relying on description and dialogue, as in a novel—but you also have sensory elements that help enrichen the experience (sound effects, score, actors)." It was also something of a collaborative experience. Percy sat in on each of the recording sessions, and noted that "there was a constant back-and-forth between me, the actors, the director, and the other producers. We were constantly revising on the spot and also encouraging the actors to riff and bend the script around their voices/personalities."

The result will be a different storytelling experience than a printed book or audiobook: "When you hear the first few minutes of Episode 1, when you hear the propulsive score, when you hear the panicked actors, when you heard their ship—The Wild Blue Yonder—wrench one way, wheel another, and ultimately crash-land on the Exoplanet, you’ll have your answer. It’s a completely transportive experience, and you’ll feel as if you’re right there with the crew."

Weir said that he hopes that this type of full-audio project becomes more of a mainstream thing: "it's not just for podcasts and audiobooks, but it's a form of storytelling that is all its own and unique. It was the main form of mass media about a hundred years ago and people loved it. Let's bring it back!"

Percy noted that there aren't any plans at the moment for a printed edition or adaptation of Exoplanet at the moment ("I wouldn't rule it out.) and Weir explained that this is the first project under his banner that's coming out of the gate, saying that they're "still working out how the overall banner will be [and that] for now, we're focused on Exoplanet. If that goes well, we'll move on to the next production."

Exoplanet will be released on Audible on November 5th.