According to The Hollywood Reporter, Emmy-winning director Johan Renck has officially found his next TV project in the form of a Caledonian Road series. He recently directed Adam Sandler in Netflix’s space drama film Spaceman.
Renck and producing partner Michael Parets are currently developing a series adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s newest British novel Caledonian Road. The story is described as a Dickensian tale about the rise and fall of art historian and celebrity intellectual, Campbell Flynn.
“We’ve long looked to Andrew O’Hagan’s relentless dissection of modern times to help make sense of our increasingly discombobulating world,” Renck and Parets said in a statement. “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.”
Who’s involved in the Caledonian Road series?
The Caledonian Road series will be directed by Renck, who will be producing alongside Parets through their Sinestra banner. The Swedish filmmaker is best known for his acclaimed work on HBO’s Chernobyl series, which earned him multiple directing awards. The project will be written by Emmy winner Will Smith, with O’Hagan serving as an executive producer. This won’t be the first time that one of O’Hagan’s novels was adapted for the small screen, as his 2020 novel Mayflies also received a TV adaptation on BBC.
The official book synopsis for Caledonian Road: “Campbell Flynn – art historian and celebrity intellectual – is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration and the finer things, controversy and novelty, he doesn’t take people half as seriously as they take themselves. Which will prove the first of his huge mistakes. The second? Milo Mangasha, his beguiling and provocative student. Milo inhabits a more precarious world, has experiences and ideas which excite his teacher. He also has a plan.
Over the course of an incendiary year, a web of crimes and secrets and scandals will be revealed, and Campbell Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all his privilege really involves. But then, he always knew: when his life came tumbling down, it would occur in public.”
