HBO in Talks to Adapt Martin Scorsese’s ‘Shutter Island’ Into Series
HBO will likely pick up a TV adaptation of Martin Scorsese‘s 2010 psychological thriller, Shutter Island, tentatively titled Ashecliffe, Deadline reports.
The premium cable network is still in talks with Paramount Television, but if the deal goes through, Scorsese will likely direct the pilot based on a script by Dennis Lehane, who wrote the original 2003 novel.
The series will center around the Ashecliffe mental institution, which Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels, investigates in the film. The show, however, will be set in the years before the film takes place, and will delve into the secrets of the hospital’s founders and the disturbing methods of treatment they used to treat their patients.
Ashecliffe was reportedly the brain child of Paramount TV chief, Amy Powell. Lehane, who also penned the books that inspired Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, reportedly jumped at the chance to explore the world he created in his novel in greater detail. Scorsese, Lehane and DiCaprio would all serve as executive producers, as well.
Ashecliffe would mark Paramount’s second film-to-TV project, with Nickelodeon recently picking up the year-old studio’s adaptation of the Jack Black–starring feature, School of Rock.
As for Scorsese, the director is currently filming the pilot for a show about a fictional record executives in the late 1970s, which he developed with Mick Jagger and Boardwalk Empire creator Terrence Winter. The show stars Bobby Cannavale and Olivia Wilde, and while HBO has been attached to it for some time, the network has yet to give it the green light. Scorsese is also set to direct an adaptation of the Shusaku Endo novel, Silence, and will reportedly helm an upcoming Frank Sinatra biopic.