The BBC has announced that it has snapped up the rights to Michael Moorcock’s Runestaff fantasy book series and has set screenwriter Steve Thompson (Sherlock, Doctor Who), producer John Yorke (Life on Mars) and executive producer Richard Stokes (Broadchurch, Torchwood) to develop a TV adaptation.
“I am delighted that BBC Studios is developing the Runestaff series for TV,” said Moorcock. “I believe the team will do an outstanding job and I’m looking forward to seeing Hawkmoon, Count Brass and Yisselda brought to the screen. This is a perfect time for the series, which seems more relevant today than it did when I originally wrote it. I will be working closely with the writers to develop the stories. I feel like a schoolboy, breathlessly waiting for the first episode to be aired.”
“The Runestaff novels were the first books that captured my imagination,” added Thompson. “It’s a privilege and a great adventure to be working with Michael Moorcock. I feel like I’ve just been handed the keys to the crown jewels of fantasy fiction.”
Runestaff spans four novels – The Jewel in the Skull, The Mad God’s Amulet, Sword of the Dawn and The Runestaff – and tells the story of a resistance against a tyrannical rule, with the protagonist Hawkmoon setting out on a journey which “takes him from ghost-cities in the Syrian desert to pirate colonies in the American bayou; from caravans of mutant creatures in Carpathian mountains to the heart of the Dark Empire itself – the glittering city of Londra where the river runs blood red.”
Via Deadline
Originally published February 17, 2019. Updated February 16, 2019.
