EXCLUSIVE: The Bridge creator Hans Rosenfeldt has set his next project, a return to the canon of crime author C.J. Tudor.
Having just penned Paramount+’s adaptation of Tudor’s The Burning Girls, Rosenfeldt is now turning his attention to her first novel, 2016’s The Chalk Man.
Rosenfeldt is combining once again with UK indie Buccaneer Media, with whom he worked on The Burning Girls and ITV thriller Marcella. BBC Studios, Nice Media Studios, Windowseat Pictures and The Boy with the Top Knot writer Mick Ford were previously adapting The Chalk Man but they are no longer attached.
We hear a network deal for The Chalk Man is close.
Starting in 1986, the book follows Eddie “Munster” Adams, who spends his days biking around a sleepy English village exchanging secret codes via little chalk stick figures with his friends. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same. Fast-forward to 2016 and Eddie thinks he has put the past behind him, before he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure.
Tudor has been called “Britain’s female Stephen King” by newspapers and Buccaneer, the prolific drama indie run by Tony Wood and Richard Tulk-Hart, is also adapting her novel The Drift for TV, although Rosenfeldt isn’t attached to that project.
The project represents a return to the crime thriller genre for Swedish auteur Rosenfeldt. He has been trying his hand at fantasy of late, penning Viaplay’s adaptation of Ronja the Robber’s Daughter, and recently told Deadline he has stopped watching crime shows.
“I love C.J. Tudor’s books and I’m so glad that I get the opportunity to adapt another one of them,” said Rosenfeldt. “I’m really looking forward to bringing The Chalk Man‘s exciting twisty plot and interesting characters to the screen together with the great people at Buccaneer”.
Buccaneer Co-CEO Tulk-Hart described The Chalk Man as Tudor’s “celebrated debut work.”
Tudor is represented by Madeleine Milburn at the Madeleine Milburn Literary, TV & Film Agency. TV rights were acquired by Buccaneer from Hannah Ladds at Madeleine Milburn.
