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11/05/2024 01:45:59 am

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FOX Works with Ridley Scott on ‘The Hot Zone’ TV Adaptation about Ebola

The Hot Zone by Preston Scott

(Photo : Wikipedia)

Americans are in for a surprise as the feared Ebola virus conquers U.S. television.

Fox together with director-producer Ridley Scott are planning to bring the epidemic to life in an adaptation of Richard Preston's 1994 best-selling book entitled 'The Hot Zone.'

With the expertise of producer Lynda Obst, Scott had been working on the project for over a year and is now considering making the production a priority as the death toll from the dreaded Ebola virus continues to rise.

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"It's a strange and upsetting coincidence that we all happen to be experiencing this current scare, and we're of course extremely sensitive about it," Obst said in a statement adding that though they did not originally plan on airing the show during this time of crisis, she believes that Preston's interpretation may be 'illuminating.'

Fox and the duo along with 'Crisis in the Hot Zone' screenwriter Jim Hart and David Zucker plan to pitch the project to different networks after they finish the script updated with the most pertinent details of Ebola.

This year's outbreak of Ebola had already claimed more than 4,500 lives, mostly from the impoverished countries of West Africa.

It has also landed on the American soil with one death out of the three cases already confirmed.

"People hoped it would stay in some remote part of the world. But that's a fantasy in the modern world. The modern world makes us one big connected family," she further explained adding that the quick death from the virus is what fuels the fear of the disease.

Though it is still not clear whether the TV series would be aired, Fox TV Studios revealed that the non-fiction thriller on the contagious hemorrhagic fever will likely be broadcasted for a limited time only.

The basis of the series, 'The Hot Zone,' revolves around a story of the discovery of a virus related to Ebola in a primate quarantine facility set in Reston, Virginia before the 1990s.

It became best-selling book in 1994 in Amazon about two decades after its initial release.

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