ABC is working on bringing Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s famous private detective character from The Big Sleep, to the small screen. The project comes from Castle creator Andrew Marlowe and The Social Network producer Michael De Luca.
The network has put in a script order for the project, reports The Hollywood Reporter. De Luca and Marlowe will work with Castle writer/producer Terri Edda Miller to reinvent the character in modern day Los Angeles. He will still have his trademark wit, but he now has to find his way through morally ambiguous modern LA.
Miller and Marlowe will write the script and executive produce under MilMar Pictures with Michael De Luca Productions and ABC Studios.
According to Variety, Marlowe has overseen ABC’s Castle with Nathan Fillion since the show began. It is currently in its sixth season. The Philip Marlowe project is the latest TV project for De Luca, who is currently working on TNT’s Mob City and the Fox limited series Shogun.
Philip Marlowe was created by Raymond Chandler and has been portrayed on screen countless times, most famously by Humphrey Bogart in 1946’s The Big Sleep. Although the character thrives in 1940’s Los Angeles, he has been modernized in the past. Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye found Elliott Gould as Marlowe in ‘70s LA. The BBC recently broadcast radio dramas of Chandler stories in 2011.