Alistair Maclean Series of Novels Being Adapted for TV

LONDON: Laurence Bowen’s newly formed indie Dancing Ledge Productions has secured the rights to adapt the novels of best-selling author Alistair Maclean.

In a deal with publisher HarperCollins, Dancing Ledge is first working on San Andreas, a thriller set on board a torpedoed WWII hospital ship as it attempts to make its way back across the North Atlantic to Scotland while a saboteur picks off members of the crew. Tony Marchant (The Secret Agent) is on board to adapt the novel.

Further Maclean novels include The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare. Each novel will be structured as a four- or six-part event miniseries.

Bowen, the CEO of Dancing Ledge Productions, said: “We are lucky to be living and working in a golden age of television drama with a huge demand internationally for high-end adaptations and TV events that can be channel defining. I doubt there are many bookshelves in the U.K. that don’t have at least one Alistair Maclean thriller, so the opportunity to work with HarperCollins to adapt a number of them for screen is incredibly exciting. If you then add a writer with the talent of Tony Marchant to the mix, we have a wonderful marriage of nail-biting action and emotional complexity.”

Katie Fulford, special projects director at HarperCollins Publishers, adds: “We’re thrilled to be working with Dancing Ledge to bring Alistair Maclean’s fantastic stories to the screen, and to a whole new audience. HarperCollins is a publishing house with a rich and varied history and Maclean is one of our most treasured authors. We’re committed to ensuring that our heritage brands continue to grow and that we constantly seek new ways to tell these classic stories.”