Sister wins Alderman novel auction

Jane Featherstone’s UK prodco Sister Pictures has acquired rights to Naomi Alderman’s novel The Power and is preparing to turn it into a long-running, global television series.

Jane Featherstone

The book, which was published this autumn by Penguin-owned imprint Viking, imagines a world where women gain the power to electrocute at will. Alderman has previously written Disobedience, The Lessons and The Liars’ Gospel and has won an Orange Award for New Writers.

TV rights were bought from Georgina Ruffhead at UK-based David Higham Associates after an 11-way auction, according to Penguin. No details of broadcaster interest have yet been revealed.

The series will be developed by Sister’s Katie Carpenter and written by Alderman, who exec produces alongside Featherstone and recently appointed Naomi de Pear, who runs Sister subsidiary Hootenanny.

Alderman said: “Jane’s track record and her commitment to excellence in writing speak for themselves, and Sister Pictures’ deep understanding of the book impressed me hugely.”

The author added that a sequel to the first novel would be unlikely but added: “There are definitely so many more stories to tell than I had room for in the book. I can’t wait to expand this story and bring electric women to TV screens around the world.”

Featherstone, former CEO at Endemol Shine-owned Kudos Film & TV, set up Sister Pictures in 2015 and is working on shows for UK broadcasters including The Split for BBC1 and The Bisexual for Channel 4.

She has also been growing her team, adding ex-Kudos execs including Chris Fry as an executive producer in October. Kudos’s former co-CEO Dan Isaacs arrived at Featherstone’s prodco in February.