New Franchise Adapting Jeffrey Archer's 'The Prodigal Daughter' as TV Series (Exclusive)

TORONTO – Canadian indie producer New Franchise Media is developing The Prodigal Daughter, the sequel to British writer Jeffrey Archer’s best-selling 1982 novel Kane and Abel, as a TV series.

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Toronto-based rights ownership company New Franchise is searching for a showrunner to adapt the story of the multi-generational family feud from the perspective of Kane and Abel's children.

New Franchise, which holds the worldwide film, TV and digital rights to a slate of ten thriller novels by Archer, is also looking for a showrunner for False Impression, an action crime novel originally developed as an action movie.

Jeffrey Steiner, New Franchise’s president and CEO, said the project is now being developed as ongoing TV series to take advantage of a longer storyline for the character-driven novel.

For The Prodigal Daughter and False Impression, Steiner is talking to prospective showrunners from North America and the UK that have been co-executive producers on previous TV series, and know the Hollywood system. 

Here the model is Eleventh Commandment, a separate TV series adaptation of an Archer novel from Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions for NBC.

British writer Patrick Harbinson (Person of Interest, 24) is writing the pilot script for the action series focused on the lead character Connor Fitzgerald, a CIA assassin whose family is in the dark about his profession.

The Prodigal Daughter and False Impression could be developed as an international co-production, likely Canada/UK, especially as Britain gets set in April 2013 to extend film tax relief to TV projects.

Or the twin page-to-screen adaptations could be developed as a 6-point Canadian TV series, with a U.S. network sale leveraging additional international broadcast deals.

On the film side, Richard Regen, who was hired by The Kennedy/Marshall Company to adapt the separate Archer novel A Matter of Honor as a multi-film franchise property, has started a second draft for the project.

Once Regen’s script is completed in January, the project will go to Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks as part of a first look deal that Frank Marshall, who stick-handled the Bourne Identity movie franchise, has with that studio.