Plans are underway to turn movie 12 Monkeys into a television series now Syfy have commission an hour-long pilot episode. The planned drama series of the same name will be based on Terry Gilliam's 1995 movie, which itself was based on 1962 short La Jetée, and will be penned by Nikita writers Terry Matalas & Travis Fickett.

Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis Played A Time Travelling Convict On A Quest To Save Humanity.

Production is set to begin in November on the pilot episode and Charles Roven, who produced the feature film, is set to be executive producer on the story's new incarnation. Set in a post-apocalyptic 2035, Bruce Willis plays a convict who seeks to earn his pardon by time-travelling to help collect information on a deadly virus released by the terrorist organisation, the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, that causes the remaining Earth's population to live underground.

Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt Was Nominated For A Best Supporting Actor Oscar For His 12 Monkeys Character.

However, time-travelling hasn't exactly been perfected yet and Willis' Cole is sent back to 1990 instead of 1991 when the virus was released. He is institutionalised as the pre-virus doctors find his tale hard to believe. By reinvigorating the story from a film that performed well in the 90s, it is hoped that the time-travel drama will be more successful than Fox's turn at creating an original time-travel series, Terra Nova, which failed in the ratings.

Watch The 12 Monkeys Trailer:

It's important to note that the same writers of Terra Nova are now trying their hand at the 12 Monkeys reboot. Wired issues a tentative warning to the writers who created the show described as "dull": "we can only hope that the 12 Monkeys pilot will owe more to the movie than their previous experience in the genre."

Terry Gilliam
Director Terry Gilliam Won't Be Involved In The 12 Monkeys Reboot.

"We have a great pilot. We're now flushing out what the rest of the series might be," Syfy's programming president Mark Stern told The Hollywood Reporter in July. It's too early for any cast decisions to be confirmed but we think it's pretty safe to say that Willis and Brad Pitt won't be reprising their roles. Amongst the highest paid actors in Hollywood nowadays, the mid-nineties probably isn't a time period they'd be dying to travel back to.

12 Monkeys fans who are cagey about any attempts at a remake should remember that the 1995 film was a remake anyway. The original 1962 short, La Jetée employed the same basic storyline but the narrative was laid out through a series of still photographs. The TV reboot will be part of Syfy's planned "five or six new original scripted projects for 2014."