Fremantle and Sinestra, the production outfit from Emmy award-winning Director Johan Renck (Chernobyl) and producer Michael Parets (Spaceman), today announce a new television adaptation, Caledonian Road; a biting portrait of modern British class, politics, and money told through five interconnected families and their rising―and declining―fortunes.
Based on three-time Booker Prize nominated Andrew O’Hagan’s (Our Fathers, Be Near Me, The Illuminations) epic novel, recently published by Faber to rave reviews, Caledonian Road will be produced by Parets and Renck for Sinestra, with Renck set to direct. O’Hagan will serve as executive producer. Emmy Award-winning executive producer and show runner Will Smith (Slow Horses, Veep, Avenue 5) will adapt for the screen.
Andrew O’Hagan (Mayflies) is represented by Peter Straus at RCW Literary Agency and Casarotto Ramsay & Associates. Lucinda Prain handled the deal for Casarotto alongside Raffaella De Angelis who spearheaded the literary acquisition for Fremantle, overseen by Christian Vesper, CEO Global Drama, and Seb Shorr, COO Global Drama.
Caledonian Road follows Campbell Flynn – an art historian and celebrity intellectual, entering the empire of middle age, and his inexorable downfall when he meets Milo Mangasha, his beguiling and provocative student. Over the course of an incendiary year, a web of crimes, secrets and scandals will be revealed, and Campbell Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all that his privilege really involves.
Johan Renck and Michael Parets, said: “We've long looked to Andrew O'Hagan's relentless dissection of modern times to help make sense of our increasingly discombobulating world. So it's with real pride we can now call him a collaborator, as we go forth with Andrew, Will Smith and our partners at Fremantle for an adaptation rooted in the seismic force of the masterful Caledonian Road.”
Christian Vesper, CEO of Global Drama at Fremantle, said: “Andrew’s Caledonian Road is a glowing example of important and compelling storytelling. We’re so excited to be a part of the project alongside such a talented team.”
Andrew O’Hagan, said: “Television interest in Caledonian Road was quick and arresting, but I only had eyes for Sinestra. The combination of Johan Renck and Michael Parets makes it one of the boldest and most imaginative production companies in the world right now. I am a fan both of Johan’s work on Chernobyl and of Sinestra’s sublime new film, Spaceman. Adding the wonderful talents of adapter and show-runner Will Smith to this team was a stroke of genius: he’s simply the best in the business. My book Caledonian Road is a social saga about power, corruption and lies, about an intelligent man’s fall from grace and the instability of reality in contemporary London. I feel so enthused by the idea of the vital television series I know these guys will make. As an author, I couldn’t be in better hands.”
Producer and Director Johan Renck is an internationally recognised filmmaker whose credits include the critically acclaimed limited series Chernobyl (HBO/Sky), which earned 19 Emmy nominations and 10 Emmy wins, including Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series and Outstanding Limited Series. Renck most recently directed the feature film Spaceman for Netflix, starring Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan and Paul Dano. He is currently in early pre-production on his next film Amo Saddam. Based on the non-fiction book The Prisoner in His Palace, the film follows a U.S. soldier tasked with guarding the imprisoned Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution. Barry Keoghan will star.
Renck directed all episodes and co-produced the BAFTA nominated limited series The Last Panthers (Sky/Canal+), starring John Hurt and Samantha Morton. He also directed pilots and episodes of the popular TV series Vikings, Bloodline, Shut Eye, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Halt And Catch Fire and Bates Motel.
The series marks the latest addition to a growing slate of projects under the Sinestra-Fremantle partnership which includes adaptations of the highly acclaimed novels Mouth to Mouth (one of Barack Obama’s favourite books of 2022), Mona Awad’s bestselling book Rouge and Amo Saddam, a film based on Will Bardenwerper’s The Prisoner in His Palace, which Renck will direct.
The partnership is one of several creative collaborations and development deals that we have forged with world-class talent including Edward Berger and his label Nine Hours, Angelina Jolie, Patrick Daly’s Caledonia Productions, Pablo Larraín’s Fabula, Rachel Weisz’ label Astral Projections, as well as ongoing collaborations with acclaimed writers and directors including Luca Guadagnino and Paolo Sorrentino.
