The ‘Taboo’ duo Steven Knight and Tom Hardy are making a BBC One adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol.’ Discussing Film now reports the miniseries will begin filming this April in London, England.
In an interview with Collider, Knight has this to say about the project:
“It’s gonna be three one-hours, it’s largely done in terms of the script. We’re planning to shoot this year and hopefully get it on the screen for Christmas… It’s BBC plus an American element which has not been announced yet.”
So it seems Knight’s plan is coming together! He also confirmed that Hardy will have a “pivotal” role in the miniseries, as well as serving as executive producer.
There will also be more Dickens adaptations, as Knight explains below:
“What I’m planning to do is adapt five Dickens books—’A Christmas Carol’ plus four novels—and do it over a period of six or seven years and have a repertory of actors, and I think we’ll get the best actors in the world, hopefully, to take part because the Dickens characters are so great. And just do like ‘[David] Copperfield’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Great Expectations’ and do them in a modern way. Not really in a ‘Taboo’ way, but sort of like that.”
Knight hopes to make ‘David Copperfield’ next, however, there is no official greenlight or confirmation on any of the four other adaptations.
The format for this iteration of ‘A Christmas Carol’ will be three one-hour installments. Meanwhile, Knight says the other, longer Dickens novels would be about eight hours in length each. Hopefully we get those adaptations in the coming years, barring the quality of ‘A Christmas Carol.’
If all goes well, the miniseries will premiere this Christmas, on BBC One.
Source: Discussing Film