Pegg and Frost to adapt Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch is a superb book that I highly recommend. It is the first of a series of novels that concern magic, occult, and weird-as-bollocks occurrences that happen in secret alongside our more tedious muggl- I mean, mundane lives. Which I will admit sounds like a lot of other things out there. What sets these apart is that they are very much aimed at adults. In places, they are very dark yet maintain a humorous edge and are a hell of a lot of fun. The protagonist is PC Peter Grant who is a policeman that ends up working for the Scotland Yard police department that secretly deals with magic and general weird shit.
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have long been a fan of the series and their TV company Stolen Picture will develop the show with Aaronovitch as an executive producer. There is a lot of scope for this to be done well, especially thanks to TV now being able to turn books into 8 or 10 hour-long episodes and not have to trim everything down to just two.
Nick Frost and Simon Pegg spoke to Deadline (where there is a lot more info).
Nick Frost: “Suddenly we were in a position where I said ‘there’s this book that I loved’ and it became available, more or less. I was chuffed to bits that I could get the rights to make it into a TV show. Everyone wants to potentially find the next Game of Thrones and the chance to turn Rivers of London into an eight-hour movie and hopefully find someone who will financially back that is a real draw.”
Simon Pegg: “This era we’re in now, TV has suddenly evolved into something far more cinematic, where you can tell stories and elaborate. A lot of books that are made into film are criticized for not being as good as the book, because they are contracted into something more simplistic. But what TV offers us now, which is a cinematic playing field, you can tell these stories with scope and get into creative detail.”
In the official press release, Miles Ketley, CEO of Stolen Picture says “Ben’s Rivers of London universe is the perfect project for Stolen and the perfect show for now: it’s a suspenseful, funny, scary and magical world but is rooted in the everyday with devious plots, fully drawn characters, river gods and riots. The franchise is going to be a wonderful confluence of Simon’s and Nick’s ambition and humour and Ben’s masterful story-telling to create a truly magical global show”.
I am a huge fan of the books. Also, the comic adaptation is pretty damn fun as well. Just FYI – in the US, Rivers of London is known as Midnight Riot for some reason, so American readers, don’t get too confused.
As I write this there seems to be no official release date or platform. It is still early days but definitely something to watch out for. If you haven’t read the first book, I think you still have plenty of time.
