THR is reporting that J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy is heading to the small screen with the help of both HBO and The BBC. News of the BBC’s involvement was already announced last year, but HBO’s new involvement is the big news of the day.
If you haven’t read it, don’t expect another tale of Harry Potter and the Hogwarts staff. This tale is all about a small town of muggles dealing with the a sudden death and town politics.
Rowling has signed on as Executive Producer of the project and it will be written for TV by the people behind The Eastenders and BBC’s Great Expectations. Production should begin this summer and it could be on the air as early as the first part of 2015.
Official Synopsis:
A big novel about a small town…
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity, and unexpected revelations?
A big novel about a small town, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults. It is the work of a storyteller like no other.