Much as “2010’ recast Roy Scheider as Heywood Floyd, so will “3001” likely have to recast someone as time-lost astronaut Frank Poole.
If it ever gets that far. Unlike “Childhood’s End,” the Arthur C. Clarke novel Syfy has greenlit for miniseries production, Clarke’s 1997 sequel to “2001,” “2010” and “2061” 
The “3001” novel follows the further adventures of astronaut Frank Poole, who was murdered by the HAL 9000 computer and left to drift in space by his desperate crewmate Dave Bowman. In 3001 Poole’s freeze-dried body is discovered by comet-collectors in the Kuiper Belt, out beyond the orbit of Neptune, revived by human doctors, and returned to Earth.
Once revived, Poole learns that HAL and Bowman have been combined into a single entity living in a monolith, and that the interstellar extraterrestrials who engineered both the monoliths and humanity are about to deliver a 450-year-old verdict regarding whether or not to destroy the human race they created. Poole then conspires with Bowman/HAL in an effort to prevent the genocide.
Stuart Beatty (“Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Collateral”) is penning the teleplay for executive producer Ridley Scott (“The Andromeda Strain,” “Coma”).
