Hopscotch Features is joining forces with Colin Farrell’s new production company and The Favourite producer Lee Magiday for a screen adaption of Irish crime novel The Ruin.
The Irish actor is expected to star in the TV series set in Galway, which follows detective Cormac Reilly as he investigates a 20-year-old case involving two children whose mother died of an overdose. The investigation uncovers police corruption and abuses in the church.
Hopscotch Features optioned the rights to the debut novel by Dervla McTiernan last year after a bidding war orchestrated by literary agents Curtis Brown.
The novel was published in Australia by HarperCollins, Penguin in the US and Little Brown in the UK. The sequel, The Scholar, was released in March and the follow-up, The Good Turn, will be published next year.
The project was brought to Hopscotch by head of production Maeva Gatineau, who said at the time: “The Ruin is one of the best debut novels we’ve read – a tensely moving page turner from a crime writer on everyone’s list to watch.”
Farrell’s Chapel Place Productions, which he runs with his sister Claudine, will produce with Hopscotch and Magiday’s fledgling outfit Sleeper Films. The series reunites Farrell with Magiday, with whom he collaborated on Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster.
Dervla McTiernan.
Hopscotch Features’ Troy Lum and Gatineau had known Magiday for years since she worked in acquisitions for Focus Features. After optioning the novel they got in touch with her and she sent the novel to Farrell, who loved it.
Lum said: “We’re thrilled to be bringing Dervla’s page-turning novel to the screen and we couldn’t have better partners than Lee, Claudine and Colin. We all responded so strongly to the material, which is driven by a richly authentic protagonist – detective Cormac Reilly – and set in the unique beauty of the west coast of Ireland.”
The producers aim to start shooting next year. No director has been set yet.
A former lawyer, Dervla turned to writing after she moved to Australia in 2011 after the global financial crisis. She lives in Perth with her husband and two children.