Besides virtually cornering the market on performance captured leading men (and beasts), Andy Serkis has been pushing his career further in other directions, including working as second unit director on the Hobbit trilogy and starting up production company The Imaginarium. He’s just signed a hefty first-look deal with 20th Century Fox and plans to develop an adaptation of Samantha Shannon’s novel** The Bone Season**.
Fox and Chernin Entertainment clubbed together to win the rights controlled by Serkis and producing partner Jonathan Cavendish. The book follows a 19-year-old clairvoyant named Paige Mahoney, who roams the streets of an alternate London in 2059 as a criminal. But an alien race kidnaps her and imprisons her in what used to be Oxford, demanding she join the ranks of their clairvoyant army. Naturally, she’s not too thrilled at the idea.
Shannon, who at the age of 21 already has a three-book deal, apparently has plans for a seven-novel run for Paige, which means the studios and Serkis will be keeping their fingers crossed that this turns into a Potter-style franchise. Still, the first film has to be made before anything can happen, and the rest of the books written and published.
In addition to his work on the Hobbit films, Serkis will be back as ape revolutionary Caesar in Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and has other producing projects in the works, including a new take on Animal Farm.