Variety reports that Columbia Pictures is after Ridley Scott to direct Red Riding, a remake of a U.K. miniseries, which was based on the novels by author David Peace. Columbia is also after Steve Zaillian (American Gangster) to write the script for the project.
The plot for the mini-series: a study of power and police corruption framed around the investigation of the disappearance of several young girls.
Scott and Zaillian will both be producing the project as well. The two have previously worked together on Hannibal and American Gangster. As was the case with the U.S. adaptation of State of Play, the setting of Red Riding will be transferred to America. The running time of the original, like State of Play, was also over five hours. It’s going to be a huge task to convert a five hour series to a two hour film.
Which brings up the obvious question, why do an adaptation at all? Even though I enjoyed State of Play, I heard it was nowhere near the quality of the original mini-series. I have never seen the U.K. version of Red Riding, but with Scott and Zaillian on board it can’t be all bad. What are your thoughts on this news? As well as your thoughts on Hollywood adapting U.K. mini-series’ into two hour films.
The "Red Riding" miniseries is playing at the AFI Fest in LA in a couple of weeks, which I wanted to check out, but it's playing alongside films I want to see slightly more. It sounds pretty sweet.
I saw the "State of Play" miniseries right before the film came out and enjoyed it. Now, I have the film sitting on my TV stand in its Netflix sleeve, as it's been for the past few weeks.
I think the adaptations are good from a standpoint of lending exposure to the source material, but don't know if paring them down by more than 50% in runtime is a good enough exercise.