‘Chernobyl’ Director, ‘Slow Horses’ Writer to Adapt ‘Caledonian Road’ for TV (Exclusive)

Scott Roxborough
·3 min read
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Chernobyl director Johan Renck and production partner Michael Parets will adapt Andrew O’Hagan’s new epic British novel Caledonian Road for TV.

Recently published by Faber to rave reviews, Caledonian Road is a Dickensian tale of the rise and fall of Campbell Flynn, an art historian and celebrity intellectual, told against the backdrop of modern-day Britain and the deep-set corruption at the heart of the ruling class. O’Hagan is a three-time Booker Prize nominee (for Our Fathers, Be Near Me and The Illuminations). His last novel, Mayflies, was adapted as a drama series by BBC in 2022 starring Martin Compston, Tony Curran and Ashley Jensen.

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Parets and Renck will produce Caledonian Road through their Fremantle-backed production company Sinestra, with Renck set to direct. Emmy-winning showrunner Will Smith (Veep, The Think of It, Slow Horses) will adapt the book for the screen. O’Hagan will serve as executive producer.

“We’ve long looked to Andrew O’Hagan’s relentless dissection of modern times to help make sense of our increasingly discombobulating world,” said Renck and Parets. “So it’s with real pride we can now call him a collaborator, as we go forth with Andrew, Will Smith and our partners at Fremantle for an adaptation rooted in the seismic force of the masterful Caledonian Road.”

O’Hagan said there was “quick and arresting” interest in a TV adaptation of his novel, but that he “only had eyes for Sinestra,” which he called “one of the boldest and most imaginative production companies in the world right now…. Adding the wonderful talents of adapter and show-runner Will Smith to this team was a stroke of genius: he’s simply the best in the business.”

An Emmy-winner for his direction on HBO’s Chernobyl, Renck first collaborated with producer Parets on the Netflix sci-fi film Spaceman starring Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan and Paul Dano, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. Renck and Parets launched Sinestra in 2022 and signed a first-look deal with Fremantle that gives the global indie production powerhouse first crack at co-financing and co-producting the company’s TV projects as well as handling international sales.

Caledonian Road is the latest in the growing Sinestra-Fremantle TV slate, which includes small-screen adaptations of Antoine Wilson’s 1990s-set novel Mouth to Mouth and Mona Awad’s best-seller Rouge, as well as the feature film Amo Saddam, adapted from Will Bardenwerper’s The Prisoner in His Palace, which stars Saltburn actor Barry Keoghan as a U.S. soldier tasked with guarding Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution.

O’Hagan is represented by Peter Straus at RCW Literary Agency and Casarotto Ramsay & Associates. Lucinda Prain handled the deal for Casarotto alongside Raffaella De Angelis who spearheaded the literary acquisition for Fremantle, overseen by Fremantle Global Drama CEO Christian Vesper and Global Drama COO Seb Shorr.

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