ITV

Tag: Miniseries

  • Tom Hanks to Produce ‘Factory Man’ on HBO

    Tom Hanks to Produce ‘Factory Man’ on HBO

    MUMBAI: Tom Hanks’ production company and HBO have bought the broadcasting rights for the bestselling book by journalist Beth Macy ‘Factory Man’ and is planning to develop the story into a miniseries.

     

    Actor Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman plan to co-produce the project through their production company, Playtone, with Steven Shareshian serving as co-executive producer and Peter McGuigan as co-producer. The cast of the miniseries have not been decided yet.

     

    The book follows and chronicles the story of the Basset family in Virginia, who have been running The Basset Furniture Company since the early 1900s and became the world’s largest wood furniture manufacturer. However, in the ’80s, Asian countries and businesses boomed, placing the long-running furniture company in competition with its Asian counterparts. In order to keep up to the times and the demand in furniture at that time, the family was forced to outsource its labour and production overseas which meant that a lot of local Virginians lost their jobs in the process. This changed when John Basset III decided to take a stand and bring back the factory’s production to Virginia. The company currently has more than 700 Virginians working for the Vaughn-Basset Furniture Co. and has sales that total more than $90 million.

     

    This news comes after Hanks’ review of the book on twitter on 24 July, “Great summer reading. I give it 42 stars. No, I give it 142 stars. Yeah, it’s THAT good. Hanx.”

     

    Playtone is currently producing a miniseries based on Elizabeth Strout’s bestselling book Olive Kitteridge, starring Oscar-winner Frances McDormand. Playtone has also produced such Emmy-award winning hits like Band of Brothers, The Pacific and John Adams.

  • Christopher McQuarrie to finally helm the film adaptation of the miniseries ‘Unforgiven’

    Christopher McQuarrie to finally helm the film adaptation of the miniseries ‘Unforgiven’

    MUMBAI: The three-part British television drama series Unforgiven, written by Sally Wainwright in 2009 is being steered into a feature adaptation. Christopher McQuarrie has signed on to write, direct and produce the film adaptation of the miniseries, along with GK Films. Graham King, who‘s GK Films, has tried for several years to turn the television series into a film has finally got McQuarrie to return at the helm.

    Unforgiven which is a drama-thriller about the intrigue and violence that unfolds when the protagonist woman completes a 15-year prison stretch for the murder of two policemen who‘d come to evict her family from their farmhouse. Her hope is to live quietly and reunite with her troubled younger sister, but she unwittingly becomes a target for revenge.

    Suranne Jones played the lead in the mini, which was written by Sally Wainwright and directed by David Evans and was first broadcast on ITV & UTV in January 2009, and STV in 2012. The series won a British Royal Television Society award for Best Drama Serial in 2009 and a nomination for Jones as lead actress.

    McQuarrie who is represented by CAA, Key Creatives and attorney David Fox was originally going to direct the film adaptation after King bought it in 2010, with Angelina Jolie as the potential lead. However he left to direct Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher and the project was put on hold. Although McQuarrie is expected to direct Cruise in Mission: Impossible 5, Unforgiven has again become a priority project for him.

    Colin Vaines and Ken Kamins will be the executive producers alongside Nicola Shindler of Red Production Company and Wainwright of Sparkhouse Productions. Wainwright was also executive producer of the original mini.