ITV detects more Maigret

Rowan Atkinson as Maigret

UK commercial broadcaster ITV has commissioned two further single films featuring Parisian detective Jules Maigret, with Mr Bean star Rowan Atkinson again attached to play the lead role.

The Blackadder actor, who played Maigret in a revival earlier this year, will return for two 120-minute films, to be produced by Ealing Studios and Maigret Productions, a Peter Fraser Dunlop Group company.

Writer Stewart Harcourt (Love & Marriage, Treasure Island, Marple) will adapt Night at the Crossroads from Georges Simenon’s novel. The second of the new films – Maigret in Montmartre – will again be set against the backdrop of 1950s Paris.

The two films are part of a Maigret series and will go into production in November 2016 until February 2017. The project was greenlit by ITV controller of drama Victoria Fea.

Maigret’s Dead Man, based on Maigret et son Mort, has already been filmed and will air on ITV later this year.

BBC Worldwide is the international partner for Maigret and the BBC’s commercial arm will oversee the global rights for the series in all territories outside the UK.

Harry Potter actor Sir Michael Gambon first took on the role of pipe-smoking policeman Maigret for ITV in the 1990s.

Simenon wrote 75 Maigret novels and the character first appear in print in 1931.