The Expanse’s Perfect Upcoming Replacement Is Coming In 2027 (& It Isn’t What You Think It Is)

6 days ago 10

Four Martian soldiers in front of a purple sky in The Expanse

Published Apr 17, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT

Dani Kessel Odom (they/them) is an autistic lead writer and TV critic who frequently covers sci-fi shows like Doctor Who and Pluribus, fantasy shows like The Magicians and Percy Jackson, horror, and superheroes. Their specialty is onscreen book adaptations.

They have covered events, such as the Denver Fan Expo. Their articles have also been shared by professionals in the field, such as Damien Leone and Lucy Hale. Their review for Ponies was quoted in the show's TV trailer.

In university, they majored in English Writing with a minor in psychology. They have always had a passion for analyzing TV and movies, even taking filmography and scriptwriting classes in university. They also studied and participated in onstage and onscreen acting extensively from the ages of 7 to 18.

Aside from working at Screen Rant, Dani has worked as a freelance editor and writer over the past decade, often in a ghostwriting capacity.

Prime Video’s The Expanse finally has the perfect follow-up to the beloved TV show, and it isn’t any of the obvious answers. Many fantastic science fiction TV shows and movies have come out in the four years since The Expanse ended, but none have quite filled the void. As such, all eyes are on future projects that could take its place.

Two major options arise when considering future sci-fi projects. Let’s start with the obvious answer. The Expanse is constantly compared to the upcoming TV show The Captive’s War, since both book series are space operas written by the same author, James S.A. Corey. While they have subtle similarities, the two series are actually quite different.

Additionally, The Expanse has been discussed alongside the TV version of Consider Phlebas, as both are politically driven space operas from extremely large book series. The Expanse has nine books, and the Culture Series, which starts with the book Consider Phlebas, has ten. They could both run for years without eclipsing the original story.

However, one noteworthy sci-fi project has barely been discussed in conjunction with The Expanse, at least when it comes to the onscreen adaptations. The 2027 movie Rendezvous with Rama is not only adapting a sci-fi classic, but it’s the perfect replacement for The Expanse.

The story follows a crew that is sent to investigate the first-ever alien spacecraft to enter the solar system. It might not seem very similar to The Expanse at first glance, but the two projects share many similarities.

Rendezvous with Rama and The Expanse both include humans’ first encounters with mysterious alien technologies that far exceed the main characters’ comprehension. The whole plot of the first Rendezvous with Rama book is the humans trying to understand the complex, cylindrical object entering the solar system. Meanwhile, The Expanse's Protomolecule is a driving force throughout the story.

Fear and uncertainty heavily contribute to the ways in which the humans interact with the cylinder and the Protomolecule. There’s always an underlying terror that they could be used as weapons in the wrong hands. There’s also a constant, underlying question about what, if anything, the aliens were trying to communicate with the technology. At the same time, neither story actually shows the aliens.

The Expanse and Rendezvous with Rama also both create the feeling that humans are minuscule and unimportant compared to the vastness of the universe. The stories decentralize our species, even if humans are the protagonists, by showing that there’s so much about the universe that we don’t understand, even in these sci-fi worlds.

The narrative styles differ greatly, but Rendezvous with Rama and The Expanse both take the same approach to incorporating science. Some space operas, like Star Wars, choose to toss the science to the side in favor of more exciting storytelling.

They are more space magic than anything else. In contrast, both Rama and The Expanse lean into harder science. Even the speculative parts of science are at least plausible, rather than being entirely made up. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter that Rendezvous with Rama leans toward mystery while The Expanse leans toward political drama. The two share enough DNA to feel intrinsically linked.

Denis Villeneuve’s Rendezvous With Rama Could Spawn A TV Franchise

An illustration from the book Rendezvous with Rama depicting a city in space

The other big reason why Rendezvous with Rama is the perfect follow-up to The Expanse is that the movie has the potential to transfer to the small screen. Denis Villeneuve’s movie will almost certainly premiere in movie theaters, as it’s too big of a project to immediately hit streaming. However, the movie’s ratings and box office success could lead to a TV continuation.

Generally speaking, sci-fi TV shows are extremely expensive to produce, especially when they involve such high-end visuals like the movie will have. However, any streamer would be more willing to invest their money in a show with proof of concept. The Rendezvous with Rama movie would be exactly that.

What’s more, executives wouldn’t have to worry about not having enough material to adapt. The Rendezvous with Rama series has three sequel books and two novellas to work with, all of which feature more character-driven and politically driven sci-fi that would work well on television.

If it took The Expanse’s one-book-per-season approach to storytelling, that’s at least three seasons of a sci-fi TV show on top of the movie. It could possibly be even more with the addition of the novellas. This would allow the show to continue for quite some time without expanding past the source material.