Paramount Television and Anonymous Content have bagged the rights to adapt Gregory David Roberts’s bestselling novel Shantaram into a television series, according to reports. They have also struck a deal for Roberts’s follow-up novel, The Mountain Shadow.
Set in the 1970s, Shantaram chronicles the story of Lin, a writer turned bank robber who escapes a maximum security Australian prison and flees to Bombay. Changing his name to Shantaram, Lin learns Marathi and reinvents himself as a doctor who looks after the residents of the slum where he lives. Shantaram was published in 39 languages and sold more than six million copies worldwide.
The 2013 novel was previously set to be adapted as a feature film by Johnny Depp, featuring Mira Nair as the director, Joel Edgerton in the lead, and Roberts writing the screenplay, but the production went nowhere.
In a statement, Roberts said that television was the “perfect medium” for the novel. “I’m honoured and humbled in equal measure as a writer, and thrilled for the many readers who have hoped that Shantaram would become a vivid screen experience,” Roberts said.