Home TV News ITV & Eleventh Hour Developing An ‘Alex Rider’ TV Series

ITV & Eleventh Hour Developing An ‘Alex Rider’ TV Series

by Dave Elliott
ITV & Eleventh Hour Developing An 'Alex Rider' TV Series

ITV & Eleventh Hour Developing An ‘Alex Rider’ TV Series

Seems to be the day for books that failed as movie franchises to be turned into tv shows! This next one comes from ITV & Eleventh Hour Films, and features Anthony Horowitz’s teenage spy, ‘Alex Rider’.

For those of you unfamiliar with the books, it follows the story of a teenager, Alex, who is blackmailed into joining MI6 after his secret agent uncle (who is also his adopted parent), is killed in a car crash. The government threaten to deport his housekeeper, Jack Starbright, back to America, and sell off his house and belongings, unless he agrees to help complete his uncle’s last mission. Reluctantly agreeing, and armed with bunch of cool gadgets, Alex sets out to take down the bad guys… It’s basically James Bond junior with some teenage Batman sprinkled on top.

BAFTA winning writer Guy Burt (The Borgias, The Bletchley Circle, Tutankhamun) is set to script the series, based on Horowitz’s hugely popular young adult novels. ITV are planning it as an “long-running, older-skewing family drama.” This sounds like it’s their latest attempt to nab the 7-8pm Saturday night ‘Doctor Who’ audience… something they’ve tried, and failed, at multiple times. Hopefully this one will work out for them!

“I’ve been a big fan of Anthony’s books for years and their combination of adrenaline-fuelled plot lines, cool characters and coming-of-age story make them superb material for adaptation,” commented Burt. “The dangers are genuine, the themes topical and the long-form television format gives me license to go deeper into the world of Alex and the characters that surround him.” Horowitz responded by saying “Guy is cleverly expanding the characters whilst staying true to the spirit of the original novels to ensure that the series will appeal to both loyal fans and a new generation of viewers.”

The plan is to have each season of the show based around one novel in the bestselling Alex Rider series, starting with ‘Point Blanc’, the second book. This is presumably to avoid covering the same ground as the (less than successful) 2006 movie ‘Stormbreaker’, which followed the first novel. There are 10 books in the series so far, with the latest, ‘Never Say Die‘ being released today.

There’s no development timeline for the ‘Alex Rider’ tv series yet, but we’ll let you know when we hear more.

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