Common, Jonny Lee Miller to Star in Movie Adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Nine Lives

Common (Selma, The Hate U Give) and Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary, Trainspotting) are set to star in Nine Lives, the movie adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s science-fiction novelette of the same name, per Deadline.

The screenplay comes from debut writer-director Siri Rodnes and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Tom Basden (Fresh Meat).

Common and Miller will play Alvaro Guillen Martin and Owen Pugh, respectively, two miners scouting the fictional planet of Libra for drilling locations. The workers are excitedly awaiting human company when they are sent 10 clones instead. After nine of the clones die, the last one is left traumatized and isolated. The dark-comedy novelette explores notions of the self, the ethics of cloning and workers’ rights.

Common won both the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Glory,” the anthem for Ava DuVernay’s Selma (2014), in which he co-starred. The rapper-actor has recently starred in numerous movies, including The Hate U Give, Hunter Killer, Smallfoot, John Wick 2 and the forthcoming Eve.

Miller is currently filming the seventh season of CBS’s crime drama Elementary, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes series. In addition to film and television, Miller is an acclaimed stage actor and Olivier Award winner, and will star in the Broadway production of Ink. He is best known for portraying Sick Boy in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting films.

Having passed away in January, Le Guin is remembered as one of the greatest sci-fi writers of our generation. She was awarded the National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters in 2014. She was also one of the handful of authors to be inducted into the Library of America while still alive. She is best known for her Earthsea series and her bestseller The Left Hand Of Darkness.

During her lifetime, Le Guin approved of few movie adaptations of her work. The last of her stories to make it to the big-screen was Studio Ghibli’s 2006 film Tales From Earthsea.

Nine Lives is expected to begin production in summer 2019. In the meantime, revisit Paste’s collection of a select few of our favorite Le Guin quotes here.