Gormenghast

Neil Gaiman and Akiva Goldsman have been wanting to bring ‘Gormenghast‘ to the small screen for a while now and things are looking good as they’ve just brought Toby Whithouse (‘Being Human’,’Doctor Who‘) on board as the writer and executive producer for the series. Gaiman and Goldsman are set to also be executive producers on the series along with Barry Spikings (‘The Deer Hunter’), and David A. Stern (‘Howards End’).

This will be a continuation of Gaiman’s work with Fremantle who also produces ‘American Gods‘ for Starz. Director of Scripted Development Oliver Jones will be overseeing the project for the production company.

The studio picked up the rights to all five of Mervyn Peake’s novels in the series so it should be interesting to see how this differs from the four-part series in 2000 which adapted the first two books in the series and starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Christopher Lee.

For those unfamiliar with the source material, it follows everyone who lives in Castle Gormenghast. The location is a sprawling structure which has fallen into repair and the main characters include Titus who is the next in line for the House of Groan’s throne, Steerpike who works in the kitchen but has secretive plans, and the twin sisters Cora and Clarice. The inhabitants of the castle and those directly around it, live in a very insular and cutoff world that has advanced beyond the medieval settings which we’re introduced to. In the first installment, we see Titus as a baby and is a background character, only growing into his own in the sequels.

Do you feel that Toby Whithouse’s work on ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Being Human’ make him the perfect fit to help develop a new series based on ‘Gormenghast’? Are you excited to see how this dark fantasy will play out on the small screen in this new iteration? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Source: Deadline Hollywood