Variety is reporting that BBC Studios is working on small screen adaptations of Ken Follett’s World War II novel Jackdaws and Federick Forsyth’s terrorist thriller The Kill List.
Jackdaws follows a team of female insurgents in Occupied France in World War II, and was originally developed as a four-part series for the BBC, who ultimately passed due to its other World War II dramas SS-GB and My Mother and Other Strangers. BBC Studios has now reworked the project as a series of eight episodes with potential for subsequent seasons, and is currently pitching to potential broadcasters with a view to a 2018 premiere.
Forsyth’s The Kill List follows the character of Tracker, a former elite soldier on a mission to find and kill a prolific terrorist called the Preacher. The series will likely consist of six to eight episodes, covering the full events of the novel, with scope for the lead character to return for subsequent series.
BBC Studios, which produces the likes of Doctor Who and EastEnders, is the production arm of the BBC, and has a mandate to develop shows for third parties in addition to the BBC itself.
“We can now think about things that we know won’t be BBC projects,” said Nick Betts, director of scripted production at BBC Studios. “There’s a huge appetite for specialist sci-fi around the world, for example, and particularly with the SVOD players, while on the BBC there isn’t huge scope beyond Doctor Who.”
