Actor Sean Bean, whose credits include “Game of Thrones” and “Lord of the Rings,” will star in “The Frankenstein Chronicles,” a re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s monster tale as a six-part period crime drama.
Executive producers are Rainmark Films’ Tracey Scoffield and Frank Doelger, whose credits include “Game of Thrones,” “Rome” and “John Adams.”
The series has been created by director and writer Benjamin Ross, who was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for “RKO 281,” and writer Barry Langford (“Torte Bluma”). Ross will direct the series.
Rainmark is producing for U.K. broadcaster ITV. Endemol Worldwide Distribution will be responsible for international sales outside U.K./Ireland.
The series is set in London in 1827 with Bean playing Inspector John Marlott. It opens with the discovery of the corpse of a child that turns out to be a crude assembly of body parts. Marlott accepts the challenge to track the perpetrator of this crime.
“Marlott’s investigation takes him into the dark corners of Regency London,” Ross said. “He discovers an underworld of prostitution, drug smuggling, bodysnatching, and murder for profit. The rational evidence points first one-way and then another as he contemplates a frightening alternate scenario.”
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ITV’s director of drama, Steve November, and controller of drama, Victoria Fea, have commissioned the series for ITV Encore.
The series will be produced by David Tanner for Rainmark and Carol Moorhead.
Filming will begin in Northern Ireland, with funding from Northern Ireland Screen, in January 2015, and further casting will be announced in due course.
Rainmark has produced many features for HBO, among them “My Zinc Bed” by David Hare, “Into the Storm” by Hugh Whitemore, and “The Special Relationship” by Peter Morgan.
Rainmark also produced “The Other Man,” a feature film directed by Richard Eyre, and, most recently, Stephen Frears’ “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” also for HBO.
Rainmark and the BBC recently announced the commission of a television event miniseries written and directed by Steve McQueen, set for production in 2015.
Doelger is director of Rainmark and lead producer on “Game of Thrones,” which is shooting season five in Belfast, Dubrovnik and Seville. Before launching Rainmark, Doelger was an executive producer at HBO and produced, among many others, “John Adams,” “Rome,” “My House in Umbria,” “The Gathering Storm” and “Conspiracy.”
Scoffield is the managing director of Rainmark, and was previously executive producer and head of development at BBC Films for 10 years.
