It’s been years since Ridley Scott made his bread directing Hovis adverts on the goggle box, but he’s never quite left the small screen behind. He and brother Tony use their Scott Free Production company to develop TV movies such as 1999’s RKO 281 (about the making of Citizen Kane and the mathematical cop drama Num3rs (yes, they really insist it’s spelt that way).
And now the siblings are joining forces with US network TNT to produce what can only be described as an ambitious miniseries. Six-parter The Company tracks the lives of a group of CIA agents across 40 years as they struggle to keep their jobs secret from their families. The series will take place between the start of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union. It’s taken from Robert Littell's book, which blends fact and fictional characters to tell its story.
The project was originally going to be a film at Sony, and has in fact been set up with TNT since November last year. But with fears that a two or even a three-hour movie span wouldn’t be long enough to adequately tell the story, the idea was snapped up by Sony Pictures Television, who already produce the likes of Rescue Me and The Shield. Ken Nolan, who adapted Black Hawk Down for Ridley, has been busy on the script, and one or both of the Scott’s might take a crack at directing - if they can find the time. Expect the series to hit US TV screens next summer and make its way over to the UK not long after that.
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