Last year it was announced that Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Good Omens) had signed on to develop an adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s fantasy book series Gormenghast, working alongside Akiva Goldsman (Star Trek: Discovery) and Toby Whitehouse (Being Human), and now comes word that the project has found itself a home, with Castle Gormenghast set to come to life on Showtime.
“The joy of trying to describe Gormenghast to people is one where words will fail you and that’s why there have been people who wanted to film Gormenghast ever since Peake wrote the first book,” said Gaiman in an interview with Deadline. “The BBC once tried but they were all making it in times when depicting the impossible on the screen was too difficult. The great thing now is that we can make it and actually show it and take you there. We are now in a world where you can put the impossible on screen and with Gormenghast, you’re not just dealing with a castle the size of a city but dealing with these incredibly glorious and memorable people.”
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The fantasy book series – Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone and Titus Awakes (the latter completed by Peake’s widow Maeve Gilmore following the author’s death) – revolve around the inhabitants of “Castle Gormenghast, a sprawling, decaying, gothic-like structure with a raft of characters including Titus, the heir to the throne of the House of Groan, scheming kitchen boy Steerpike and twin sisters Cora and Clarice.”
As noted by Gaiman in his comments above, the first two books in the series were previously adapted for the small screen by the BBC in 2000, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Christopher Lee featuring in the cast.
