LONDON – South African author Deon Meyer’s suspense novel series Devil’s Peak has been optioned for a film trilogy starring Sean Bean.
Producers Malcolm Kohll (Formula 51), Michael Murphey (District 9, Dredd), through his Kalahari Pictures, and Ofir Kedar (A Thousand Kisses Deep) will bring Devil’s Peak: The Trilogy to the big screen.
Bean (Lord of the Rings) will star in the recurring lead role of Detective Benny Griessel.
The trilogy, based on the novels about “revenge, forgiveness and the race to catch a trained killer,” will start with The Devil’s Peak, for which principal photography is scheduled to start in South Africa in September, followed by 13 Hours and 7 Days.
Executive producers are Hersch Klaff, Robbie Little and Robert Fig. Little’s worldwide sales and distribution company, The Little Film Company, is handling international sales. It will introduce the project to foreign buyers in Cannes.
“The Deon Meyer trilogy will be a world-class series of films set in one of the most exhilarating places on earth – Cape Town, South Africa,” said Murphey. “It has been demonstrated repeatedly lately that South Africa is the first class filming destination. The U.S. dollar, the Pound and the Euro go further in South Africa than just about anywhere else in the world.”
Said Kohll: “I believe that Deon Meyer will do for the South African thriller what Stieg Larsson did for the Scandinavian crime novel.”
“Devil’s Peak is the kind of gritty thriller that finds an audience wherever it plays,” said Little.
Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
