Sandkings

 is an upcoming fantasy film directed by Gore Verbinski. It is an adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s (Game of Thrones) short story of the same name. The project was announced by Verbinski himself.

The movie will be produced by John Baldecci for his Digital Riot Media production company. Netflix’s Sandkings is currently in its first steps of development and no filming dates are known as of March 2021.

Verbinski is teaming up with writer Dennis Kelly. Verbinski revealed his plans in an interview with Collider: "“One of the screenplays is based on a George R.R. Martin short story called Sandkings, which is this brilliant little twisted short story that I love. And I’m working with a great writer, Dennis Kelly, who wrote the original [Utopia]… The British original series is brilliant. And Dennis is doing the adaptation, so I’m kind of excited about that.”"

- Verbinski

Summary
"When Simon Kress returned to his home planet of Baldur from an offworld business trip, he was amused to find that his tank of Earth piranhas had cannibalized themselves into extinction, and of the two exotic animals that roamed his estate, only one remained. Now, in search of some new pets to satisfy his cruel pursuit of amusement, Simon finds a new shop in the city where he is intrigued by a new lifeform he has never heard of before … a collection of multi-colored sandkings. The curator explains that the insect-like animals, no larger than Simon’s fingernails, are not insects, but animals with a highly-evolved hive intelligence capable of staging wars between the different colors, and even religion–in the form of worship of their owner. The curator’s warning to Simon about the regularity of their feeding, unfortunately, was not taken seriously."

- Official Netflix synopsis