Actress Florence Pugh is set to star in a new adaptation of John Le Carre’s spy novel The Little Drummer Girl.
The same production team behind The Night Manager series, based on another of le Carre’s popular espionage books, will work on the new project, with original Oldboy writer/directer Park Chan-wook taking charge of the shoot in his TV debut.
“Of le Carre’s many masterpieces, the one I love ahead of any other is The Little Drummer Girl,” Park shared in a statement to Deadline.com. “At the core of this story is an extremely painful but thrilling romance. This is what makes the story universal, reaching beyond borders and languages and remaining incredibly current.”
He also lavished praise on The Falling star Pugh as “the most energetic young female actor I have seen recently”.
The six-episode series, based in the Middle East in the 1970s, centers on a young actress as she prepares to help take down a Palestinian terrorist. It will be produced by officials at The Ink Factory, the BBC, and AMC, and begin filming next year (18).
The Little Drummer Girl, published in 1983, was previously turned into a 1984 movie by filmmaker George Roy Hill, starring Diane Keaton, Yorgo Voyagis, and Klaus Kinski.
Producers will be aiming to match the huge success of the Emmy-winning The Night Manager, which was developed as a mini-series by director Susanne Bier last year (16), and featured Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, and Olivia Colman.
Officials at The Ink Factory, BBC, and AMC are also working on another le Carre series, based on his Cold War book, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.
