Buccanneer commits to Welsh’s Crime

MIPCOM: London-based Buccaneer Media is linking up with Trainspotting creator Irvine Welsh to bring his novel Crime to television.

Irvine Welsh

Buccaneer, launched by former Lime Pictures exec Tony Wood with backing from Cineflix in 2013, is producing the series, which will be the first television adaptation of one of Welsh’s novels.

Dougray Scott is already attached to star in and executive produce the project, which is being launched at Mipcom in Cannes this week.

The 6×60’ series, which doesn’t currently have a broadcaster attached, is a thriller that follows the work of a grizzled Scottish detective working in Miami who suffers flashbacks to his previous cases.

Filmed predominantly in Miami, the series will feature all the drugs, alcohol and corruption that have become synonymous with Welsh’s work. The novelist, playwriter and screenwriter shot to fame in 1996 when his film Trainspotting was released.

Welsh’s long-standing screenwriting partner Dean Cavanagh will co-write Crime, with Nicola Larder from Buccaneer exec producing alongside Scott and Wood.

Welsh said: “It’s been something that Dean Cavanagh and I have been interested in doing for a while. The story is one of a classic journey from darkness into light, and despite the troubling subject matter, I think an uplifting one.”

Scott added: “When I read Irvine Welsh for the first time I knew I was in the company of a unique and utterly brilliant voice. After finishing the novel Crime, I knew it was a story that I just had to help bring to the screen.”