Deadline is reporting that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s Stolen Picture production company has secured the screen rights to Ben Aaronovitch’s fantasy book series Rivers of London and is working on a TV adaptation.
Rivers of London follows Peter Grant, “an ordinary police constable turned magician’s apprentice as he solves crimes across the British capital with a blend of urban fantasy, mystery thriller and fantasy caper.”
“We were in a position where I said ‘there’s this book that I loved’ and it became available, more or less,” states Frost. “I was chuffed to bits that I could get the rights to make it into a TV show. Everyone wants to potentially find the next Game of Thrones and the chance to turn Rivers of London into an eight-hour movie and hopefully find someone who will financially back that is a real draw.
“TV has entered an era where sprawling book series such as Rivers of London can now be adapted faithfully,” adds Pegg. “This era we’re in now, TV has suddenly evolved into something far more cinematic, where you can tell stories and elaborate. A lot of books that are made into film are criticized for not being as good as the book, because they are contracted into something more simplistic. But what TV offers us now, which is a cinematic playing field, you can tell these stories with scope and get into creative detail.”
Pegg, Frost and Aaronovitch will serve as executive producers on Rivers of London, which joins the previously announced Truth Seekers, We Never Sleep and Chemistry as part of the Stolen Picture slate.
