Robert Hughes’ epic account on the birth of Australia, The Fatal Shore, will be turned into a dramatised six-hour television series next year.
ScreenCorp’s James M. Vernon has taken an option on the rights and has attached Scottish historian and TV presenter Neil Oliver to host the series.
Vernon told IF the production will be faithful to Hughes’ book but set in the modern day, with CGI-created re-enactments of the epic events during the country’s settlement by England.
The screenplay is being written by Drew Lees, with Vernon as story editor. Vernon had been working on the project with Hughes until the author’s death last August.
The docudrama will be an Australian-UK co-production and Vernon will seek to pre-sell it to broadcasters in both countries with the expectation that it will also be attractive to North American networks. Vernon envisions hiring high-profile directors from Australia and UK but none is signed yet.
Currently Oliver is fronting an Australian version of his British series Coast, produced by Great Southern Television for Foxtel’s The History Channel. Vernon said Oliver will present each episode with his trademark brand of energy, panache and insight.
Vernon said the narrative will “be very much Hughes’ words but with a contemporary view of how he saw Australia’s history.”
There have been several attempts to bring the book to the screen since it was published in 1987. The Australian arm of Dino De Laurentiis' empire originally bought the rights and the Italian producer intended to shoot the miniseries as a co-production with Carolco. Both companies got into financial strife and the rights passed to various entities which, Vernon said, required almost detective-like work to establish the true owners of the rights.
Coote/Hayes Productions acquired one set of rights and in 2000 announced it would make a four-hour miniseries directed by Bruce Beresford. At one point Coote/Hayes developed the project with Village Roadshow and Ted Turner’s TNT network but it never eventuated.
The Los Angeles-based Jeffrey Hayes will serve as an executive producer on the ScreenCorp. production with Vernon and his daughter Kristy Vernon (Gabriel, John Doe) as producers.