London and LA-based production outfit The Ink Factory has acquired rights to Andrew Michael Hurley’s Devil’s Day, and will adapt the novel into a television series.
The company, run by John Le Carre’s sons Simon and Stephen Cornwell (pictured), were behind the award-winning adaptation of The Night Manager.
The deal was brokered by Luke Speed of Curtis Brown Group on behalf of Lucy Luck of C+W Literary Agency. The novel was published by John Murray on 19 October.
Hurley’s debut The Loney, which won the Costa First Novel Award and was described by Stephen King as “an amazing piece of fiction”, is being developed as a feature film by Film4 with The Night Manager’s David Farr adapting.
Devil’s Day is described as a claustrophobic supernatural tale set in a tiny hamlet on the Lancashire moors. The novel follows John Pentecost and his newly pregnant wife Kat who have returned to John’s family farm to mourn the loss of his grandfather. Their arrival coincides with the ritual of Devil’s Day, a potent ceremony which holds a dark significance for the tight-knit community and belies centuries of secrets and superstitions.
The Ink Factory is currently in post-production on Drew Pearce’s Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster Sofia Boutella and Dave Bautista.
Andrew Michael Hurley said: “I’m absolutely delighted to be working on the screen adaptation of Devil’s Day with The Ink Factory. From the first meeting, it was clear that their vision of the relationship between the valley, moorland and the characters matched my own.”
Emma Broughton, head of development at The Ink Factory, said: “‘Andrew’s stunning novel offers extraordinary potential for adaptation: its beguiling, complex characters, compulsive narrative, and extraordinary evocation of landscape, match absolutely, in sensibility and ambition, our commitment to create brilliant, bold, and thrilling drama.”
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