Fictional detective Ellery Queen is set to make a return to television – this time as a woman.
Incendo Media and BlackBox Multimedia have acquired the TV rights to the collection, which includes short stories and novels in which Queen (originally written as a man character) appears.
They will develop and produce a high-end scripted series that will feature Ellery as a female lead. Casting for the role of the detective with the highest sales has not yet been completed.
The “Ellery Queen”The books were created by Frederic Dannay, a cousin, and Manfred Bennington Lee in China. They are still immensely popular in the U.S. Queen was both a fictional detective as well as a pseudonymous name that cousins used to write or edit other works.
“’Ellery Queen’ is one of the most definitive series of detective fiction to ever be written,”BlackBox Multimedia’s CEO, Giuliano Papadia made the following statement. “The stories have been global favorites for a huge part of the 20th and 21st Centuries. They have fascinating plots, unique characters, and settings you love to get lost in. The team at Incendo are the perfect partners for helping modernise this excellent and timeless series of stories.”
Gavin Reardon, Incendo’s international sales & co-production executive added: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to develop a new series, based off an already established, globally successful IP. In collaborating with the creative minds at BlackBox Multimedia, we are eager to discover the reimagined version of the novels come to life on screens around the world.”
Rand B. Lee and Richard Dannay of Jabberwocky Literary Agency represent the “Ellery Queen” estate, said “When our fathers first sat down to begin the collaboration that would become Ellery Queen, they never would have dreamed that they would then embark on a forty-year journey together, or imagined the remarkable success that ‘Ellery Queen’ would attain. All of us in the Lee and Dannay families are thrilled to be working with BBMM and Incendo, which have both been so respectful and admiring of the rich ‘Ellery Queen’ tradition, in crafting a new chapter on the screen for our shared legacy.”