Carnival Films acquires Harris novel

NBCUniversal International Studios-owned Carnival Films, the UK prodco behind Downton Abbey, has acquired the rights to a forthcoming novel by acclaimed author Robert Harris (Fatherland, The Ghost).

Gareth Neame

The Second Sleep, which will be published by Penguin Random House imprint Hutchinson this September, is being adapted into a long-running series by writer Bill Gallagher (Jamestown, Paranoid, Lark Rise to Candleford).

Carnival’s Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant (Downton Abbey, The Last Kingdom) will serve as executive producers alongside Harris and Gallagher.

The story follows a young priest who arrives in a remote village in Exmoor, south-west England, to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with artefacts – coins, fragments of glass and human bones – that the old parson used to collect.

The series “will paint a world that is both familiar and yet strangely alien, asking what price one must pay to uncover the truth,” Carnival Films said.

“Robert Harris’s The Second Sleep is an extraordinary work in its vision and originality, creating a rich world that speaks directly to our own,” said Neame.

Harris added: “The Second Sleep, like Fatherland, is set in a speculative world that mingles past and future. What immediately attracted me to Carnival’s proposal is its scope. The television series will both dramatise my novel and take it one step further, exploring my imaginary world beyond the confines of my story.”

The series will be produced by Carnival Films and distributed by NBCUniversal International Distribution.