EXCLUSIVE: Scottish production company Synchronicity Films has secured the rights to Hanif Kureishi’s novella, The Body. The plan is to develop the tense thriller as a high-end international drama series. Synchronicity’s Claire Mundell will executive produce, with Robert Murphy (DCI Banks, Vera) adapting. The acquisition was made in partnership with Green Ash Pictures backed by Great Point Media.
The Body, originally published in 2002, centers on Adam, a middle-aged, middle-class man who is offered the chance to trade his aging body for a younger, fitter form of his choice. Season One will track Adam’s odyssey from ordinary man to beautiful person, via the uber-culture of the stateless mega-rich, and ultimately back to his family, ending with Adam’s decision to restore himself to his real body. But his decision comes too late. The company which performed the procedure has been liquidated, leaving Adam stranded and facing the sinister forces which pursue him. The story explores the question: How far are we willing to go to stay young?
Mundell says The Body has long been a favorite and is “a great basis for an elevated thriller series.”
A novelist, playwright and screenwriter, Kureishi was Oscar-nominated for his Original Screenplay of 1985’s My Beautiful Laundrette. His other screen credits include Le Week-End and My Son The Fanatic which was adapted from his own short story. Novels include The Buddha Of Suburbia and Intimacy.
Murphy is the latest writing talent to partner with Synchronicity as the company continues to broaden its slate of high-end TV drama productions which are currently in development with various broadcasters. The company last year acquired Graeme Macrae Burnett’s Man Booker short-listed His Bloody Project to adapt as a series and has Helen Fitzgerald’s domestic noir thriller The Cry in development with BBC Drama for BBC One.
Synchronicity’s film credits include Not Another Happy Ending, The Weekend and Crying With Laughter. Mundell is also producer on Karen Gillan’s directorial feature, Tupperware Party, set for release in 2018.
