Matchbox Pictures and Universal Television will produce a US version of The Slap for the NBC network.
NBC has ordered eight episodes, adapted by Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz.
The remake was first reported in October 2012 but NBC has now formally given the greenlight.
Baitz and Matchbox’s Tony Ayres will executive produce with Universal TV-based Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald and Ted Gold.
Adapted from the Christos Tsiolkas novel, The Slap starred Jonathan LaPaglia, Melissa George, Essie Davis, Alex Dimitriades, Sophie Lowe and Sophie Okonedo and aired on ABC-TV in 2011
The US version is likely to follow the same approach of each episode looking at a cataclysmic act -one man slapping another couple’s misbehaving child- from the viewpoint of each participant and onlooker.
The Slap is the latest addition to an unprecedented wave of remakes for US networks, which include Essential Media and Entertainment's Rake (Fox), Hoodlum Entertainment’s Secrets & Lies and The Strange Calls (both for ABC) and Jungleboys’ A Moody Christmas (ABC) and Review With Miles Barlow (Comedy Central).
These deals are “testimony to the quality of Australian TV drama,” Ayres tells IF. He will be involved in the creative process but isn’t sure if he’ll have time to direct any episodes.
“2014 is a crazy year for me,“ says Ayres, who is finishing his movie Cut Snake and developing a second series of Nowhere Boys for the ABC and a slate of other projects.