Evening folks, My first thought was, write it! You never know what direction it could take unless you start and get it on paper. And like Scott said, you'll have one more piece in your written arsenal. Also, how about mixing genres? Zombies or vampires in space? A space musical? West Side Story-esque? Thriller/horror? An insane asylum with the protagonist wrongly trapped there, trying to escape? Alien - and its subsequent movies - I guess is technically sci-fi but it doesn't play like that; at least to me. Event Horizon is set on a spaceship, but for me, CREEPY AF! Still to this day cannot watch that movie.... Anyway, just my 1.5 cents on ways to approach. Christine

SeaLayne12, that's the spirit. Again if a writer is REALLY passionate about a story, even if it's a big budget science fiction project, there's no downside other than sweat equity in writing it on spec. Just go in with eyes open as it it likely to a a more difficult sale for reasons cited in the OP.

Agree 100% with the advice given. Another positive if you decide to spec it: your reps will quickly ask if you can reimagine it as a 10-episode limited event TV series. Dozens and dozens of buyers for those -- especially if all of the elements Scott outlines above are in place, and if you've done the character work.

Agree Completely. For me I have to write the things I want to write. The things that I have loved spending countless hours fleshing out the story and characters is what I'll have the most fun with. Luckily most of that has been, in my limited knowledge, probably less than 20 million a piece. That said if that blockbuster idea arrives and needs me to write it I'll do my best and get it out to the world.

Write big or go home. Big stories. With big characters and big emotion. Big gravity that sucks a reader in and carries him on big tides, leaves him exhausted and exhilarated and in love with your writing. That, to me, seems to be the gist of GITS. And patience.

Have been wrestling a similar problem with a mythic fantasy project. Whether full animation or live-action in a mythical world, it'll be expensive to produce. But I can't get myself to write anything else. So I looked up animation studios and found there are a lot more than there used to be, many capable of superb work. I've decided to go ahead, write the dang thing, and let the chips fall where they may. At least I'll get it out of my system and create a new piece of real estate, which is better than doing nothing, wandering around full of self-recrimination for being a lazy slob!