John Crowley's 2015 film Brooklyn won awards for its depiction of a young person figuring out their lives with the backdrop of huge change, so he feels like the natural choice for a TV series with some similar thematic resonance. He's attached to work on an adaptation of Rupert Thomson's novel Dreams Of Leaving.
Playwright Nick Payne is also on board, writing the script for what See-Saw Films is hoping will be either six or eight episodes, with Crowley directing them all.
Dreams Of Leaving is set in a fictional English village known as New Egypt. Seemingly an idyllic bastion of traditional values, but hides a dark secret side of iron-fisted rule and making prisoners of the inhabitants. Our main character is Moses, who escaped the village as a youngster and grew up in London, but as he questions his identity, he unearths new questions about his past and his quest for answers leads him back to his birthplace.
No broadcaster is attached to this one, but with the talent involved, it should be a popular, attractive package. On the film front, Crowley is developing an adaptation of another book, Donna Tart bestseller The Goldfinch.
[Brooklyn's John Crowley Directing The Goldfinch