“Foundation” will be a giant novelistic Apple TV+ show spanning a whooping 80 episodes

Last August, Apple TV+ has confirmed work on a new series based on Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” science fiction novels. Today, we learn that the show will have 80 episodes.

Apple TV+ hasn’t had such a major show since its inception and the company is betting that “Foundation” will become its “Game of Thrones”. In fact, showrunner David Goyer himself compared the upcoming series to HBO’s “Game of Thrones” in an interview with Loving Manta.

The audience is changing. The way that we’re consuming stories is changing. Game of Thrones was really the first of these big, giant novelistic shows, and now with “Foundation” we can tell the story hopefully over the course of 80 episodes, 80 hours, as opposed to trying to condense it all into two or three hours for a single film.

Many scenes for the first season of the show are being filmed in Malta.

Other seasons will also be filmed in Malta, aside from other places like Ireland. “Foundation” marks the first ‌Apple TV+‌ show to be produced in the country.

Malta’s copious water tanks

Goyer continued:

Malta was always part of the plan. We have a water planet and Malta has copious water tanks – there aren’t a lot of those in the world. One of the major sequences in the series has to do with a lot of water scenes and we always thought about Malta as our primary go-to.

Based on Isaac Asimov’s science-fiction novel of the same name, “Foundation” chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization.

Apple’s “Game of Thrones”

The Cupertino tech giant is obviously hoping that “Foundation” could accelerate the somewhat slow conversion of free Apple TV+ subscriptions to renewals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgbPSA94Rqg%2F

Producers recently signed on Lee Pace and Jared Harris to the sci-fi drama series, with both actors leading the rest of the cast in the show. Production is set to start in Southern Ireland, and it’s being described as a massive operation bringing 500 extra production jobs to the region.

“Foundation” will file as Ireland’s largest on-location production.

The series is executive produced by Robyn Asimov, David S. Goyer, Josh Friedman, Cameron Welsh, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross. “Foundation” is produced for Apple by Skydance Television.

“Foundation” is coming to Apple TV+ in April 2021.