Richard Armitage acquires film and TV rights to Ellis’ Jackman and Evans series and will play lead

Richard Armitage’s White Boar Films and Sprout Pictures have acquired the film and TV rights to Joy Ellis’ Jackman and Evans crime series, with Armitage to play the lead character in a television adaptation “based on the novels” and entitled “The Fens”.

Rebecca Watson at Valerie Hoskins Associates negotiated the deal on behalf of Lorella Belli at the Lorella Belli Literary Agency representing Joffe Books, the English language publisher. The television adaptation is being developed in association with international distributor Eccho Rights. 

Written by BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Tim Dynevor, it will star Richard Armitage as Rowan Jackman. Based on Joy’s novels, “The Fens” will be “an unsettling, atmospheric returning crime thriller set in the remote, hauntingly cinematic landscape of the Fenlands.”

The show’s synopsis continues: “With its numerous unexplained events – vanishings, murders, black fog clouds drifting across the marshes, strange lights that invariably precede an imminent death, and sounds apparently emanating from nowhere – even in the 21st century the isolated Fenlands retain an unshakeable reputation for superstition and secrecy. Some are born evil. Some are raised evil. Some choose evil. Welcome to the Fens. A world that will literally take your breath away.”

According to Lorella Belli Literary Agency, Joy Ellis has sold more than 3.4 million copies of her novels in English. Her latest novel is Solace House, the ninth book in the Jackman and Evans series. Book seven, The Patient Man, was shortlisted for Best Crime Thriller at the British Book Awards 2021. 

Armitage commented: “I met Joy on the pages of Their Lost Daughters, her second novel. Then we met in person and I told her one day we would make a TV show of her stories and it became a labour of love. I believe Joy Ellis is the closest thing we have to a contemporary Agatha Christie.

“Through a collaboration with Gina Carter at Sprout, Adam Barth at Eccho Rights and the brilliant mind of Tim Dynevor, I believe we have built a family that will propel the Jackman and Evans stories from the page to the screen, over multiple seasons. That would be my greatest joy.”

Ellis said: “I am absolutely delighted that Sprout Pictures and Richard Armitage’s White Boar Films are going to take my Jackman and Evans series to our television screens. It’s a dream come true. The icing on the cake is that Richard will play Jackman – he will be perfect. Since hearing his incredible performances with Audible, I now see and hear him in my mind when I write new Jackman books!”