Adding to its growing list of original programming, Apple has bagged the television drama series adaptation of Gregory David Roberts’s bestseller Shantaram, reported Screen Daily. Paramount Television and Anonymous Content had bagged the rights to the novel in January and will be producing the show for Apple.
Several film adaptations of the book have been planned in the past, most famously by Johnny Depp with Mira Nair as director and Joel Edgerton in the lead.
The television series will be scripted by Eric Warren Singer, who co-wrote the 2013 film American Hustle. Paramount and Anonymous content have also acquired the rights to Roberts’s follow-up novel, The Mountain Shadow.
Shantaram follows the story of Lin, a writer-turned-bank robber who escapes an Australian prison and flees to Mumbai. Once in India, he changes his name to Shantaram, learns Marathi and becomes a doctor looking after the residents of a slum. Shantaram was published in 39 languages and sold more than six million copies worldwide.