108 Media taps Tricia Lee to adapt YA horror novel into animated series

London-based financer, producer and distributor 108 Media has optioned young-adult horror book A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts by Ying Chang Compestine for an animated anthology series.

Tricia Lee

A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts, published in 2009, is being adapted for TV and written by LA-based showrunner Tricia Lee, while Lester Hsi, who was behind Netflix’s Taiwanese horror film The Bridge Curse, serves as creative director.

Set across different epochs surrounding Chinese culture across the world, the 8×30’ series is in pre-production and features eight self-contained ghost stories laid out as courses of a banquet, combining recipes, live-action and animation.

The English- and Mandarin-language series is coproduced by 108 Media along with Taipei-based Studio76 and its distribution arm Studio886. Studio76 and Studio886 will handle the rights in Greater China while 108 Media will sell the series in the rest of the world

A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts, which is being produced and developed in LA and Taipei for release in the fourth quarter of 2022, is executive produced by Lee, Compestine, Justin Deimen, Micah Tadena and Matthew Wilson for 108 Media and by Hsi and Dennis Yang for Studio76.

Ying Chang (photo: Ben Krantz)

“This is such a wonderful and vibrant book with a collection of stories so wisely devised and so creepily presented with a haunting sense of human foibles,” said Justin Deimen, president of production at 108 Media. “I hope that through this unique hybrid adaptation of elevated genre animation, more viewers can get a glimpse of the chilling and rich stories from around the world.”

In related news, 108 Media has teamed up with former Astro pay TV chief Zainir Aminullah’s production company Revolution Media to coproduce its original action-crime series I Am Vash.

The 8×60’ show is set in the crime-ridden Malaysian seaside town of Port Klang during the 1970s and follows a rebellious woman police officer up against societal and political pressures while working the biggest case of her career.

The drama will begin production in May 2022 and be delivered in early 2023, said 108. Adrian Teh is directing, with Aminullah (Dirk Gently, The Ghost Bride) among the exec producers and Sangeeta Krishnasamy in the title role.