Working Title Options Rights to New John Preston Book

The U.K.-based production company Working Title has optioned the TV rights to best-selling author John Preston’s (A Very English Scandal, The Dig) new nonfiction book, Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell.

Published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell delivers an account of business tycoon Robert Maxwell’s rise, fall and mysterious death. The project is being developed as a limited TV series and will be produced by Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, with Head of Drama Surian Fletcher-Jones overseeing development. Working Title will aim for a production start later this year.

In February 1991 British media mogul Maxwell had completed his purchase of the ailing New York Daily News, only to drown at sea just nine months later after falling off of his yacht—by accident, suicide or, as some conspiracists say, murder. Maxwell left behind billions in debt, the plundered pension funds of his employees and a broken family.

Preston said: “Robert Maxwell is one of the fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century and I think Working Title are the perfect people to turn it into a television series.”