Pegg & Frost’s Stolen Picture To Adapt Ben Aaronovitch’s ‘Rivers of London’
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s production company Stolen Picture have set their sights on Ben Aaronovitch’s urban fantasy novel series ‘Rivers of London’ to adapt for tv the duo has revealed.
For those of you that don’t know the novels, ‘Rivers of London’ (aka ‘Midnight Riot’ if you’re from the US) follows Peter Grant, a young London Met police officer, who has an unexpected encounter with a ghost. Following this supernatural experience, he finds himself recruited by Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale into a special branch of the Met that deals with magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Grant is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.
Aaronovitch spoke to Deadline, who broke the news, about his previous experiences trying to get his work adapted to screen. “I’ve worked in television before so I was wary of sticking my head back into that lion’s den,” he cautioned. “It was a difficult thing to sell so that it wouldn’t get horribly butchered, and television up to now has had a lot of difficulties.” However, when Pegg & Frost approached him, he adds “How could I say no? I feel confident on several levels. I’m working with creators and I know these people don’t like bollocks. There will be creative conflicts and where external forces force us to make compromises but I know that the starting point is that we won’t make those compromises unless we have to. [Pegg & Frost] are tremendous nerds and I don’t have to explain things to do them about magic, they just get it. we have a common language, which we don’t have in a lot of TV companies.”
Being a writer himself, it sounds like Pegg feels Aaronovitch’s pain. “Often as a writer, you are the absolute bottom of the food chain and treated like scum,” commented the ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ and ‘Spaced’ co-creator. “As a writer, I understand what it’s like for someone to use you as a springboard rather than use your vision and it’s good to have writers involved as producers because they get it and we want to make a faithful adaptation that is a true reflection of the book.”
‘Rivers of London’ was the first in a series of novels which has also spawned graphic novels and novellas. Collectively the franchise has sold over 2.5M copies worldwide and seen Aaronovitch nominated for various awards. Aaronovitch, who is working with Pegg to write the series, has previously written for tv on late-80’s episodes of ‘Doctor Who’ and classic sci-fi series ‘Blake’s 7’.
Whilst the trio has announced they are working on ‘Rivers Of London’, it is still very early on in the process. They are still pulling things together, and have not yet gone out to pitch to broadcasters or streaming services, so it could be a while before we see anything hit our screens. We’ll let you know if and when we hear more.
