Based on the cult novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by English author Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), the BBC America television adaptation has reportedly cast Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings) in a key role.
According to Deadline, Wood will play Gently’s assistant Todd, who accompanies the titular detective on bizarre adventures, investigating all things supernatural and mysterious. Todd is being described as being a “compassionate, sweet, smarter-than-average man with biting wit” who definitely doesn’t consider himself just a sidekick to Gently but rather thinks that he is “just flat out better than Dirk at a lot of things.”
The pilot was written by Max Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra) and will run for at least 8 episodes. Back when the project was first announced Landis confessed that this was “a dream project of mine, no joke, and I absolutely positively couldn’t be happier…This is any writer’s ultimate project, and in the current TV space, it fits ridiculously well.”
Previous adaptations of the Dirk Gently series have already happened. A BBC radio adaptation was first produced in 2007 starring comedian Harry Enfield, an hour-long television version aired on BBC 4 in 2010, starring Stephen Mangan with three further episodes being commissioned in 2012, and a comic book run began in May 2015.
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Originally published March 23, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
