Red Planet Pictures, has done a multi-project deal with author Louise Candlish, with whom they collaborated on the hit ITV drama, Our House.
Candlish will work with Red Planet Pictures’ executive producer Tom Mullens, who produced the indie’s previous Candlish adaptation, Our House, to create new drama ideas for the small screen, in parallel with her novel adaptations.
This extended relationship between Candlish and Red Planet, part of the Asacha Media Group and helmed by Belinda Campbell and Alex Jones, will also include options on two further books from the British author, including 2016 thriller, The Swimming Pool (working with producer Elizabeth Kesses-Delport of EJK Productions), and her next novel, The Only Suspect, for which Our House writer Simon Ashdown, is once again attached to adapt and is due for publication by Simon & Schuster in February 2023.
The agreement builds an ongoing, long-term, working partnership between Red Planet Pictures and Candlish regarding new novels, and potential new projects, going forward. The aim is to build on the success of Our House broadcast earlier this year and transfer Candlish from the best-seller lists to screen dramatist with a recognisable brand of thrillers.
Candlish has developed a reputation for her twisty crime novels. She has sold over 1.5 million copies in the UK and is translated into 17 languages in more than 25 countries.
Our House launched on the channel in March 2022, stripped across the week, became both a critical and ratings hit consolidating to over 7.5m for the first episode, making it ITV’s third best 9pm new drama launch so far this year.
Louise Candlish said: “I was blown away by Red Planet’s adaptation of Our House for ITV and am very excited to be collaborating on more stylish, high-calibre dramas. We share a passion for twisty, suspenseful storytelling that takes the audience into dark scenarios that could oh-so-easily happen to any one of us. I can’t wait to get started.”
Belinda Campbell, joint managing director of Red Planet Pictures said: “Louise is a tremendous talent and is hugely successful and much loved, both in UK and across the globe. She has an uncanny knack of elevating a psychological thriller in a classy and captivating manner and is so on point reflecting contemporary life, weaving current issues and life experiences into her intense web of storytelling. Our House proved a huge hit with viewers and in that collaboration we found a real synergy in creating high end, unmissable drama that is of the moment and compulsive viewing. We want to bring her into the same league as some of TV’s best and most celebrated authors, where she rightly belongs.”
This deal furthers Red Planet Pictures’ broad development slate working with a mix of established and up-and-coming writers on a wide range of adaptions and original drama for international and domestic broadcast platforms.
Pippa Considine
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