Recursion Movie And TV Series: What We Know About The Shonda Rhimes And Matt Reeves Project

In 2019, Blake Crouch’s Recursion was one of the most anticipated books. It even won a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Science Fiction and became a book club favorite. Even before its release, buzz surrounded Recursion. This was partially due to Netflix buying the rights to it, with the plan being for Shonda Rhimes and Matt Reeves to adapt Recursion into a movie and multiple TV series.

Crouch has had his work adapted in the past. In 2015, Fox adapted his Wayward Pines series and aired it for two seasons. TNT adapted a series of Crouch’s novellas into Good Behavior, a series that ran for two seasons and starred Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery. Since 2014, and the Dark Matter series adaptation premiered on Apple TV+ in 2024. Crouch’s cinematic style of writing makes it easy to see why so many of his books have been turned into TV shows and future movies.

With hit series Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal,Bridgerton, and How to Get Away with Murder, Rhimes is one of the queens of television land. She has become synonymous with entertainment that brings compelling drama, shocking twists, and sexy romances.  Throughout his career, Reeves has built diverse projects that include Let Me In, Cloverfield, and critically acclaimed The Batman starring Robert Pattinson.  Rhimes and Reeves’s impressive projects make them the ideal team to build the Recursion cinematic universe. 

Recursion Is Set To Be Adapted Into A Movie And Multiple TV Series At Netflix

In 2018, Shonda Rhimes signed a deal with Netflix to produce original content. This deal includes multiple movies and TV series. Recursion is one of those projects. The same year, Matt Reeves signed a first-look deal with Netflix. It allows the company access to a first look at any movies he wants to produce and direct under his company 6th & Idaho. Reeves and Rhimes had a pre-established relationship with Netflix when it was announced in October 2018 that they planned to team up to adapt Recursion. All parties involved seemed very excited about the project. Rhimes even said, “Projects like this are why I came to Netflix.” She added: 

Reeves and Crouch were equally as excited to work with her on the project. Reeves stated this about working with Rhimes:

Crouch stated that he was a fan of Rhimes and Reeves, so he felt honored to have them both working on Recursion. He also thought Netflix was the perfect place to bring the book to life because the company allowed innovative adaptations. Recursion being bought by Netflix and produced by Rhimes and Reeves came about eight months before the book’s release, which showed enormous faith in the potential of the story.

What Is The Book Written By Blake Crouch About?

SPOILER ALERT: We’ll be discussing the plot of Recursion, including some spoilers. Turn back now if you haven’t read the book (and goread the book, because it’s fantastic!)

Recursion takes place over multiple periods in time. Helena Smith is determined to map memories so that she can reactivate them in those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, especially her mother. In 2007, she meets Marcus Slade, a wealthy tech founder, and he offers to fund her research. Meanwhile in 2018, Barry Sutton tries to prevent a woman from committing suicide. She’s developed False Memory Syndrome (FMS), a disorder that causes people to have memories of a life that doesn’t exist. Barry’s investigation leads him down a life-altering path (literally) that eventually overlaps in a major way with the project Helena is working on.

Essentially — and this is where we get into spoilers — the chair Helena has built allows the user to travel through a mapped memory, dying in the process and coming to at an earlier point in their life, in time to change it. Barry ends up getting to do this and is able to prevent his daughter’s death. But there’s a catch. While Barry is able to re-live the last eleven years over again in an altered timeline where his daughter is alive, the people affected by the change (his wife, daughter, co-workers, etc) will eventually regain memories of the original timeline. On a small scale, this causes some problems. But consider the ramifications of such a shift on a larger scale.

Recursion follows Helena’s development of the chair over time, as well as the impact it has on Barry’s life and what happens when the two characters meet. And it doesn’t take long for the technology Helena has designed to create major problems as the chair is used by different people and organizations for their own means. Each new memory jump creates changes to the present and puts the world a step closer to nuclear destruction.

The time traveling aspect puts Recursion in good company with other great time-traveling stories. Time travel and memory are going to be major themes of the Recursion series and movie, but one of the core aspects of the book is Barry and Helena’s love story. Falling in love makes the stakes of them saving the world even greater.

Recursion has a lot of political elements as well. Towards the end of the book, we see how such a dangerous weapon can lead to global warfare, even if things are created with good intentions. As stated in the intro, Crouch’s storytelling style is already very cinematic, which makes it easy for Reeves and Rhimes to bring the book to Netflix, because it doesn’t need to change much to work in screen form. We think, and hope, that the movie and TV adaptations stick pretty close to the important elements of the book version of Recursion.

How Is This Adaptation Going To Work?

As of 2024, Recursion production has not officially begun. However, we have some theories about how this movie/TV project might work. It seems likely that the movie will be an adaptation of the book and follow Helena and Barry’s story. The TV show or shows (as Blake Crouch mentioned to EW back in 2019) is where things could get interesting.

In the same EW article, Crouch stated that:

He doesn’t get into specifics about that, but we’re wondering if it has to do with other ways the chair gets used in the book. There’s a line in the book that says, “I even found a company in Sao Paulo using it for tourism.” We don’t know for sure if that’s a sentence Crouch had in mind when he made his statement, but it certainly caught our attention as a potential plot for a Recursion TV show.  This line highlights that the memory chair is used all across the globe for different purposes, which may go beyond just the simple idea of time traveling. Maybe one of the TV series could take on the style of Black Mirror or other great antology series ,and show the different ways some countries or people use the chair. 

It could also revolve around some of the alternate timelines that are produced because of the Recursion chair.

In a 2019 News & Observer interview, Crouch mentioned that he was not going to be involved in the writing process for the TV shows and movie.

This quote fits with the idea that the alternate timelines could be the focus of future Recursion series. Maybe the different TV shows will be set in different countries that have access to the chair and show what life looks like for new characters and locations.

This is all just speculation at this point.

The ending of the book Recursion had a resolution, but we’re guessing either the movie version (if a direct adaptation) ends with a more open-ended way to allow the story to expand into television series, or the TV series and movie will be treated separately, and not an expansion or continuation of each other. 

Is Recursion Still Being Made?

We haven’t heard much about Recursion since the initial announcement from Netflix. However, it’s allegedly still in the works with Netflix, Rhimes, and Reeves. In a Reddit AMA from 2022, Crouch confirmed that it was still in the works from them. He said they retained the rights to it for “a couple more years.” He did say if the project didn’t happen, he could gain the rights back and create it himself, similar to Dark Matter.

Therefore, it seems likely that Recursion still will eventually become a TV show or movie. It just might not be with Netflix, Rhimes, and Reeves. Since 2018, Crouch has had the rights to adapt three additional stories bought, Famous that will star Zach Efron, his 2022 book Upgrade, and short story Summer Frost. So even if it’s a while before Recursion hits screens in some form, Crouch fans will still get to see one of his books adapted soon.

We’ll be sure to update you when we have more information on what’s happening with the Recursion adaptation.