ITV is developing a TV series based on Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling Alex Rider series. This announcement follows closely on the tail of the 10th release in the series, Never Say Die, which can be found on bookshelves in the U.K. on June 1st. The series, intended for a young adult audience, has sold 19 million copies worldwide since its first release in 2000.
ITV will be teaming up with Eleventh Hour Films to make the show, with BAFTA-award winning Guy Burt at the helm. Burt has written a number of novels and television scripts, most significantly for Kingdom and The Borgias. Horowitz has said of Burt that he “is cleverly expanding the characters whilst staying true to the spirit of the original novels.” This likely means that although the primary audience for the Rider novels has always been young, Burt and ITV may seek to skew the series towards a more general audience.
Not much more is yet known about the series, but fan response to this news has been largely positive. Hopefully it fares better than the previous Rider adaptation, 2006’s Stormbreaker, which failed to recoup its $40 million dollar budget and brought visions of a major franchise to a crashing halt.
