October 9, 2013

War and Peace TV adaptation coming to the UK

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Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn in the 1956 film version of War and Peace

Set your DVRs, or rather, start clearing them out entirely, because you’ll need lots of room for the latest project announced by the Weinstein Company: a six-part TV adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic War and Peace. Nancy Tartaglione writes for Deadline that Harvey Weinstein and friends are teaming up with BBC Worldwide and production company Look Out Point to bring the massive book to the small screen.

The screenplay for the series will be written by Andrew Davies (no relation), who’s no stranger to adapting historical works of literature. He’s already written television scripts for Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Brideshead Revisited, among others. The planned series has been described as “one of the most ambitious” taken on by the BBC; Weinstein said of the project:

Needless to say, adapting War And Peace is a tremendous but exciting task. There’s no one I’d rather be partnering with than Lookout Point’s Simon Vaughan and the BBC’s Ben Stephenson and Faith Penhale on this production, whose incredible visions are second to none in bringing classic literature to the screen in the most sophisticated way possible.

You have plenty of time to make sure your recording devices are prepared for what’s sure to be an epic series. The War and Peace adaptation won’t hit the airwaves in the UK until 2015, and there are no announced plans for it to air here in the US. Until then, our time is best spent coming up with official casting suggestions:

 

Nick Davies is a publicist at Melville House.

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