Prolific and award-winning sci-fi author Ray Bradbury passed away yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 91 after a long illness. He is perhaps best known for his classic novels Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, but Bradbury also wrote hundreds of short stories, some 47 other books, as well as screenplays, teleplays, poems, essays, plays, and, according to his website, an opera (yes, an opera!) during his illustrious 70-year career.

Bradbury inspired generations to think beyond what was put in front of us, to dream, and to create. While he eschewed such modern inventions as video games and ATMs, and purportedly hated television, he adapted 65 of his stories for a TV series called The Ray Bradbury Theater, which aired first on HBO from 1985-1986 and then on the USA network from 1988-1992.

No fan of eBooks either, Bradbury finally relented last year and allowed Fahrenheit 451 to be published in ebook format, which we wrote about here.

It seems like we’ve heard about a multitude of movie adaptations of the works of Ray Bradbury over the years, but but very few have actually been made…not counting A Sound of Thunder, of course, which might be one of the reasons these other films have had so much trouble.

One of the projects we’ve heard was getting a movie treatment more than once, is Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. It was first acquired by Universal Pictures in 1997 with Steven Spielberg attached as a producer, but that never worked out. And if Steven Spielberg’s name isn’t enough to get a movie to happen, you know you have tough road ahead. Back in June of 2010 we once again heard that a movie was on the way, this time at Fox, but apparently that one never worked out either.

John Davis, in association with 20th Century Fox, has optioned the rights to The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury‘s collection of short science fiction stories.

The basic premise of the book is that Earth is well on its way to becoming all but uninhabitable, and the human species has come to the conclusion that they must colonize Mars. When they arrive many complications arise, including trying to make the red planet a new Earth, a worldwide nuclear war looming back on their home planet, and the differences between them and Mars’ native inhabitants.