Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series of novels (four in total, plus a novella), which center on the inhabitants of Castle Gormenghast, a sprawling, decaying, gothic-like structure, are soon headed to the small screen, with Neil Gaiman and Akiva Goldsman adapting the fantasy series. Today we’ve learned, via Deadline, that the project has found a home at Showtime.
Showtime is in development on the series, with Toby Whithouse as showrunner.
Deadline notes, “The premium broadcaster has handed the adaptation a script to series commitment and has opened a writers’ room.”
Gaiman told the site, “The joy of trying to describe Gormenghast to people is one where words will fail you and that’s why there have been people who wanted to film Gormenghast ever since Peake wrote the first book. The BBC once tried but they were all making it in times when depicting the impossible on the screen was too difficult. The great thing now is that we can make it and actually show it and take you there. We are now in a world where you can put the impossible on screen and with Gormenghast, you’re not just dealing with a castle the size of a city but dealing with these incredibly glorious and memorable people.”
“The books follow the inhabitants of Castle Gormenghast, a sprawling, decaying, gothic-like structure with a raft of characters including Titus, the heir to the throne of the House of Groan, scheming kitchen boy Steerpike and twin sisters Cora and Clarice.”
The BBC had previously adapted the first two books for television back in 2000.