STAR OF PERSIA EPIC SERIES
FROM COURT OF KING XERXES
An epic show a day keeps the doctor away, is my favourite saying, spylings. And this one will be exotic too. M.E.G.A. Films has bought rights on Jill
Eileen Smith's historical novel STAR OF PERSIA with plans to turn it into a mini TV series. Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore will write he scripts inspired by the Old Testament’s Book of Esther, following a brave peasant girl, Esther, who is enslaved by Persian King Xerxes, and forced to be a part of his harem. There, as she works to gain the trust and respect of the other women in the palace, she fights to become their protector and advocate. Now rising to wield great power as the King’s favorite concubine, she discovers a deadly coup among his most trusted advisors. On the heels of his army’s costly victory over the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, Esther must decide whether to expose and foil the plot, or become complicit in the downfall of an empire.
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| Star of Persia will become TV series |
PROVVIDENZA EPIC TV SERIES
SET IN 16TH CENTURY MILAN
Speaking of epic shows, Variety reports that Francesco Musesti's upcoming novel Lodovico, a prequel to Italy's literary classic I Promessi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni, will be turned into an epic TV series titled
PROVVIDENZA by Game of Thrones executive producer Vince Gerardis set in 16th century plague ridden Milan. The prequel novel follows the backstory of the character of Friar Christopher, who before converting, murdered a nobleman in a duel, and also that of other characters in the Italian classic: the ruthless aristocratic male known as The Unnamed; a thug named Griso; the pious Cardinal Borromeo; and the novel’s modest female protagonist Lucia, whose backstory in the prequel becomes imbued with witchcraft.
The prequel TV series follows the travails of two lovers amid wars, famine, bread riots and the plague, and will retain the novel’s same apocalyptic backdrop, but almost 40 years earlier! This dark tragedy will have the carnal and spiritual aesthetic of Caravaggio paintings!
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| Prequel book Lodovico is out this October |
