HBO And BBC Developing Wolf Hall Mini With Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Writer

EXCLUSIVE: In their latest collaboration, HBO and BBC are developing a miniseries adaptation of the award-winning historical novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy co-writer Peter Straughan will make his TV debut writing the four-part miniseries, which is being eyed for HBO and BBC2. It is being produced by UK indie Company Pictures (Shameless) and U.S.’ Playground Entertainment, the company of former HBO Films president Colin Callender. Mantel’s 2009 novel Wolf Hall, which won the Man Booker Prize, the UKs highest literary award, is set in Medieval England. It is a fictionalized biography chronicling the rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of King Henry VIII. Cromwell, one of the strongest advocates of the English Reformation, helped get an annulment for Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he can marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. Cromwell eventually fell out of favor with the king and was executed. On the showtime series The Tudors, also set during the reign of Henry VIII, Cromwell was played by James Frain. In addition to co-writing this year’s Oscar contender Tinker Taylor Solider Spy, an adaptation of John Le Carres novel, Peter Straughan’s feature writing credits include The Debt and The Men Who Stare At Goats.