'State of Play' Going Hollywood

An American movie version of the show is all set to roll before cameras sometime next year, with writer Paul Abbott acting as executive producer.

Dec  8 2004

Those damn Yankees are at it again. Not content with mangling 'The Avengers', bungling 'Thunderbirds' and making a mockery of 'The Singing Detective', Hollywood is once more plundering British television for it's movie ideas.

The rights to 'State of Play', the brilliant political thriller that was the best thing to happen to British TV in years, have recently been acquired by Universal, who plan to work on a big screen version of the story sometime in 2005.

Under the guidance of producer Andrew Hauptman the re-make will be set in America, but Paul Abbott, the man who wrote the original show and is currently working on a British follow-up, will be retained as the movie's executive producer.

The brilliant series, which starred John Simm, Bill Nighy, David Morrissey, Kelly Macdoanld and James McAvoy, concerned a team of journalists investigating two seemingly unrelated murders, and captured the imagination of critics and audiences alike when it screened on the BBC last year.

It was also chock full of the sort of betrayal, conspiracy and political intrigue that Hollywood loves, and even won three Bafta awards, including one for Nighy's marvellous performance as the cantankerous tabloid newspaper editor Cameron Foster.

There's no word yet regarding cast or start date, but the studio is already approaching screenwriters for what Hauptman believes will be one of the most interesting projects to go before cameras next year. As the producer himself puts it: 'It's a blistering political thriller, and we want to make an equally blistering movie.'