Hera Pictures Scores Rights to The Whalebone Theatre

Hera Pictures has optioned the rights to develop a TV adaptation of Joanna Quinn’s best-selling historical novel The Whalebone Theatre.

The coming-of-age book begins in the ’20s, when a young girl builds a play theater from the bones of a whale that has washed up on shore—technically a crime, since the whale, by law, belongs to the king. She grows into a headstrong young woman and becomes a British secret agent during World War II, a much more dangerous form of acting than what she grew up doing in the Whalebone Theatre.

Hera Pictures has adapted various novels, including Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From, starring Jodie Comer, and DC Moore’s Mary & George, starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine.

“We fell in love with Jo’s gorgeous book from the moment it began—a family epic, a coming-of-age chronicle, a spy thriller and a tangled romance, The Whalebone Theatre is written with such warmth, poignancy and humor,” said Liza Marshall, founder of Hera Pictures. “It’s no surprise that it is a global bestseller. Jo puts the changing role of women center stage, and her book is perfect for a television adaptation.”

Quinn added, “I am so excited by the thought of The Whalebone Theatre appearing on screen. Countless people who have read the book have told me they would love to see it as a TV series, and I am delighted that Hera Pictures have acquired the rights.”