Agatha Christie is a hot property, now and always. The new adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express is chock full of prestigious acting talent. Now, Amazon has claimed the rights to adapt her books for a series of dramas, and they’re already snatching up big names to murder, be murdered, and investigate murder.
Deadline reports that Amazon has inked a deal with Agatha Christie Limited, which oversees her estate, to produce seven dramas based on her work beginning with Ordeal By Innocence. The book is about the murder of the Argyle family matriarch, whose son, Jack, was convicted for the crime and dies in prison. But when a man returns to town to prove Jack’s innocence, the family must figure out who was actually responsible. Dun dun dun!!
And check out this line up, from Variety:
The ensemble cast of “Ordeal by Innocence” includes Bill Nighy (“Love Actually,” “Pirates of the Caribbean”), Alice Eve (“Star Trek Into Darkness”), Ella Purnell (“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”), Matthew Goode (“The Good Wife,” “Downton Abbey”), Catherine Keener (“Get Out”), Ed Westwick (“White Gold,” “Gossip Girl”), Luke Treadaway (“Fortitude”), Eleanor Tomlinson (“Poldark”), and Morven Christie (“The A Word”).
Production company Mammoth Screen will be working with ACL, after a successful run with executive producer Sarah Phelps at the helm for BBC One’s adaptations of And Then There Were None in 2015 and The Witness For The Prosecution in 2016. Ordeal By Innocence was supposedly one of Christie’s favorite books, and considering how many she had to choose from, that’s high praise indeed.