New Delhi: Anthony Mackie, Ariana DeBose and John Leguizamo will headline Exoplanet, a new Audible Original sci-fi thriller that will launch exclusively on the audio platform on 5 November.
The Martian and Project Hail Mary author Andy Weir serves as executive producer of the series, which is written by acclaimed novelist Benjamin Percy, Audible said in a statement.
Exoplanet follows a starship crew separated across different eras after a quantum anomaly tears their spacecraft apart, forcing them to find a way to communicate across centuries to survive.
The story centres on the crew of the starship Wild Blue Yonder, which is ripped apart by the anomaly, leaving its surviving members stranded in different timelines on the same deadly exoplanet.
Captain America: Brave New World star Mackie voices Chief Engineer Jeff Shaw, who lands in the planet's present and, aided by his virtual assistant, struggles to survive while trying to find a way back to his daughter.
Academy Award winner DeBose plays First Officer Becca Bang, who is stranded in the planet's dangerous alien past, while The Odyssey actor Leguizamo voices Science Officer Logan Bowers, who awakens in a machine-controlled future that should not exist.
The crew eventually discovers that the anomaly was not an accident. A relentless alien intelligence that feeds on human technology has been waiting for them across multiple timelines, forcing the survivors to communicate through centuries before the planet consumes them.
Weir said the project blends his fascination with scientific problem-solving and survival with a story about people separated not by distance, but by time.
“Benjamin Percy’s writing in Exoplanet takes that and adds a twist that genuinely kept me up at night: what if the people trying to save each other were separated not by distance, but by centuries?” Weir said.
“You can't see that story. You have to hear it. The crackle across a five-hundred-year gap, the desperation in a voice that doesn't know if anyone's still listening,” he added.
Marshall Lewy, Head of Audible Content for North America, said the series was designed specifically as an immersive audio experience.
“With Andy as executive producer and Benjamin Percy crafting beautiful scripts specifically for the ear, Exoplanet is built for the audiences who loved Project Hail Mary and The Martian while also giving them something entirely new,” Lewy said.
The supporting cast includes Cherry Jones, Sufe Bradshaw, Charlie Plummer, Ray Porter and Aida Osman.