Posted in: BBC, TV | Tagged: bbc, Michael Ondaatje, miramax, The English Patient

The English Patient: BBC & Miramax Set to Adapt Novel for Television

Published Thu, 19 Aug 2021 05:37:10 -0500

The BBC is developing a TV adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's 1992 Booker Prize-winning novel The English Patient. Miramax, which produced the original Oscar-winning 1996 movie, will be co-producing with Paramount Television Studios. Run and Taboo writer Emily Ballou will be the writer of the series.

The English Patient: BBC and Miramax Developing New TV Series of Book — Still from "The English Patient" movie, courtesy of Miramax

According to Deadline, this will be a new, fresh adaptation of Ondaatje's book rather than a remake of the 1996 movie that was written and directed by the late Anthony Minghella. The movie The story follows four people brought together at an Italian villa during World War II, one of them a burn victim and the "English patient" of the title. The story hops back and forth in time to slowly reveal who he really is and the tragic love affair that brought him to this point. He is cared for by a Canadian Army nurse who develops a romance with a Sikh British Army sapper while an injured Canadian thief on a mission of revenge befriends them, suspecting the English patient is his target.

The movie won 9 Oscars including Best Picture and was a big deal in its day. Details from the movie became big talking points in the days before the internet. Today they would be memes: Herodotus' The Histories that the English patient (played by Ralph Fiennes in the movie) carried with him, Minghella's use of the word "uxorious" in his Oscar speech in praise of his wife, and the media's scramble to find out what it meant, how Fiennes' burn make-up made him look like Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and so on.

The English Patient is the latest British series in the works from Miramax TV which has been ramping up its London-based operations. It recently teamed up with Dominic Treadwell-Collins on an adaptation of Jim Cartwright's play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, which inspired the 1998 Miramax film Little Voice.

Ballou is an Australian/American poet, novelist, and screenwriter who lives in the UK. She was a supervising producer on Run, the HBO series that Phoebe Waller-Bridge executive produced, and a creative consultant on Steven Knight, Tom Hardy, and Ridley Scott's series Taboo, which aired on BBC and FX. She has also written on Starz's Becoming Elizabeth and AMC and Channel 4 co-pro Humans. Hopefully, she will bring a fresh take to the series.

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