Martin Scorsese will direct a pilot for a TV spin-off of his 2010 mystery thriller Shutter Island.
HBO and Paramount studios are entering a partnership to bring the Dennis Lehane-scripted story to the small screen.
The series is titled Ashecliffe after the name of the isolated island mental hospital in Boston’s harbour where the film took place.
According to Deadline, the series will be set before the events of Shutter Island and will focus on the hospital’s past secrets, the wrongdoings of its founders and the development of the brutal methods use to treat patients in the early 20th century.
In Scorcese’s Shutter Island (based on the best-selling novel by Lehane), Leonardo DiCaprio plays a US Marshall who travels to the hospital for the criminally insane while investigating the disappearance of one of its patients.
There is no news yet on when Ashecliffe will begin production as Scorsese is currently working on historical drama Silence, staring Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson, while his executive-produced gangster thriller, Revenge of the Green Dragons, is due for release this autumn. The director is also working with HBO and Mick Jagger as a co-producer on an untitled rock’n’roll drama set in 1970s New York.
The Dennis Lehane-scripted thriller The Drop, starring Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini, will reach UK cinemas in November. Lehane's novels Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone have also been made into successful films.
(Written by Rachael Fletcher)