Snowpiercer is being adapted for TV, just like Limitless and Taken before it. But without Chris Evans starring and Bong Joon-ho directing, how will this series fare?

The latest TV trend is superhero shows adapting popular action movies, taking the main idea and turning it into a premise better suited for long-form storytelling.

This year, Limitless premiered on CBS, with Jake McDormand as a new character injected with the same drug Bradley Cooper took in the movie. Meanwhile, a TV series version of Taken is also in development, which will tell the story of Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills before he looked like Liam Neeson.

And now, The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Bong Joon-ho’s critically acclaimed 2013 action movie Snowpiercer is getting the small-screen treatment; the movie was itself an adaptation of the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige.

Josh Friedman, seasoned TV writer who’s also worked with James Cameron on the script for Avatar 2 and 3, will be penning the pilot script.

Related: Fan Favorite Filmography: Breaking down the back catalog of Chris Evans

Says Friedman in a statement, “I couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity. I’m a huge fan of director Bong’s films, especially Snowpiercer. It’s great the way the best sci-fi is great — thoughtful, political, funny, scary and sly. And it’s on a train. A big f—ing train. What more could you want?”

Snowpiercer takes place in a post-apocalyptic Ice Age, where the remainder of the human race is confined on a train, which is divided into class sectors. Chris Evans stars as a lower-class passenger, who leads a revolt, with Tilda Swinton as the ruthless dictator.

Without the main stars on board (literally), the success of the Snowpiercer show will hinge on the strength of the script. We have no doubt Josh Friedman (who created the underrated The Sarah Connor Chronicles and is developing Emerald City for NBC) is up for the challenge, but we’ll have to wait and see. After all, there’s a long way from a script being optioned to the series being picked up by a network.

Director Bong Joon-ho will be involved as executive producer, and the pilot script for the Snowpiercer TV series was optioned by Tomorrow Studios.