Gregory David Roberts’ ‘Shantaram’ to Be Adapted Into a TV Series

Anonymous Content and Paramount Television are reportly developing ‘Shantaram’ novel as a drama series.  

Paramount Television and Anonymous Content have reportedly bagged the rights to adapt Gregory David Roberts’s bestselling novel Shantaram into a television series.

The novel, which released in 2003, was initially going to be adapted as a feature film in 2006, helmed by Mira Nair and starring Johnny Depp. In 2013, it was announced that Bright star, Joel Edgerton was going to be cast as the lead, with Depp as producer but the film fell through. Roberts was reportedly going to be writing the screenplay of the feature film. "The screenplay I am writing will be as complex and will have the same sense of layering and texturing. Thematically, it will reflect everything that is in the heart of the book and that is the exile experience, and the power of love to transform and change the heart of a person. But the book is a book and the film is a film - they are different art forms so the film will have an independent life," he had said.

Talking about the TV series, Roberts said that it 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”.

Gregory David Roberts

Paramount Television and Anonymous Content have also signed a deal for Roberts’s upcoming novel, The Mountain Shadow.

Shantaram is the story of Lin, a writer turned bank robber who escapes a maximum security Australian prison and arrives in Mumbai in 1970s. The book managed to sell over six million copies worldwide and has been published in 39 languages.

Paramount TV president Amy Powell called the book a “rich story that is so beloved by audiences worldwide.”

(Source: Deadline, Variety)

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