Gore Verbinski Says His GRRM ‘Sandkings’ Movie Is “Really, Really Cool”

Gore Verbinski is still dreaming of deadly alien pets. The director has given a fresh update on his long-gestating adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Hugo-winning novelette Sandkings, calling the project “really, really pretty cool” and very much alive in development.

Speaking to Collider at the Palm Springs International Film Festival while promoting his new film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, Verbinski described why he keeps circling material that feels creatively risky — and why Martin’s vicious little sci‑fi horror story fits that bill perfectly.[1]

Why ‘Sandkings’ Is a Perfectly Twisted Verbinski Project

First published in 1979, Sandkings is one of Martin’s most unsettling early works, set not in Westeros but in his broader Thousand Worlds universe. The story follows Simon Kress, a wealthy playboy on the planet Baldur who collects dangerous, exotic creatures for fun — until he buys a terrarium full of mysterious alien colonies known as sandkings.

Each sandking colony is ruled by a single massive female, the maw, who psychically commands swarms of insect‑like drones to gather food and build elaborate sandcastles around her. When Kress starts starving them and pitting the different‑colored colonies against one another for party entertainment, the experiment spirals into cruelty and then outright horror.

That blend of psychological nastiness, creature design and slowly escalating dread makes the story an intriguing match for Verbinski, whose filmography already runs from Rango to Pirates of the Caribbean to the grim Gothic horror of A Cure for Wellness. “I’m sort of drawn to things that I don’t know how to do,” he said, adding that he’s fascinated by “the cost of curiosity” — a theme that runs straight through Martin’s tale.[1]

Verbinski didn’t offer a production timeline or casting hints, but his comments are the clearest sign in years that the movie hasn’t sunk into development quicksand. For Martin fans tracking his many screen projects — from Westeros spin‑offs to deep cuts like Dying of the Light heading to TV[2] — it’s another reminder that his older sci‑fi is suddenly hot IP.

From Thousand Worlds to Today’s Adaptation Boom

Sandkings has been adapted once before, as a heavily altered 1995 episode of The Outer Limits. A feature‑length film with Verbinski at the helm would be the story’s biggest leap yet — and part of a broader push to mine Martin’s non‑Westeros catalog, alongside vampire epic Fevre Dream and cult classic Nightflyers.[3]

The director’s update also arrives in the middle of a wider book‑to‑screen wave. Studios are digging deeper into catalogs and shorter works, from Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams to Brandon Sanderson novellas and beyond.[4] In that context, a nasty little sci‑fi horror about god complexes and tiny alien empires feels right on trend — and potentially easier to mount than a sprawling Westerosi epic.

For now, Sandkings remains in development, with Verbinski nursing what he calls another “dangerous” creative swing. If it finally crawls onto screens, it could be many readers’ first trip into Martin’s Thousand Worlds — and proof that his most chilling stories aren’t all hiding behind a wall of ice.

Sources: Collider’s exclusive interview with Gore Verbinski on Sandkings and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die;[1] George R.R. Martin’s original novelette Sandkings.[3]