Patricia Highsmith’s ‘Ripley’ Book Series Headed to TV (Exclusive)

A version of this story first appeared in the June 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

As Patricia Highsmith‘s The Price of Salt adaptation Carol is making waves in Cannes, the late author’s Tom Ripley series could be headed for the small screen. 

Television 360, Endemol Shine Studios and publisher Diogenes are teaming to bring the late author’s five-book series to television, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Television 360’s Guymon Casady (Game of Thrones) and Ben Forkner (Good People) will executive produce. Philipp Keel of Diogenes, the late Highsmith’s Zurich-based publisher and agency, is also on board as an EP. Endemol Shine Studios exec vp Jeremy Gold will oversee the project for Endemol Shine Studios — the scripted division of Endemol Shine North America. Producers hope to put the property together with a writer — or major filmmaker — as well as an actor before shopping it to premium cable networks or streaming services.

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Highsmith’s Ripley was the focal point of five novels over four decades in the series known as the “Ripliad“: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), Ripley Underground (1970), Ripley’s Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980) and Ripley Under Water (1991).

Casady and Forkner — longtime fans of the Ripley books — built a relationship with Keel that ultimately evolved into a partnership to develop the novels as a series, with 2015 marking the 60th anniversary of the internationally recognized character.

The trio’s vision for the TV series is to expand on Rene Clement‘s 1960 feature Purple Noon and Anthony Minghella‘s Matt Damon starrer The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) — both of which were based on the first book in the series — and explore the depth, sophistication and complexity of the character of Tom Ripley. In total, five films have been made from the Ripley novels, with no actor playing the character more than once.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit