Director Roland Joffe has signed on for his second TV miniseries in a week. Days after agreeing to helm History Channel’s Texas Rangers, the Oscar nominee has signed on to make a unique adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame for FremantleMedia International.
Joffe has renamed the iconic story Ugly and moved the story to the late 17th and early 18th centuries, reports Variety. In this version, the hunchback is abandoned and picked up by actors who name him “Ugly.” The series will follow Ugly’s life to adulthood.
In addition to Ugly, the series will have a secondary plot that follows John Law, an economist overseeing the finances for French King Louis XV. Although Law does introduce paper money, his policies lead to financial ruin.
“Inside that maelstrom of financial and social madness beats one extraordinary heart, and it beats in the chest of an extraordinary person, who is called Ugly, because by our standards of beauty that’s what he is,” Joffe told Variety. “The question is what is beauty and where do we find it?”
Deadline reports that FremantleMedia will handle sales of the project at the Cannes Mip-TV market. The director is hoping to start filming in 2015.
Joffe, who earned Oscar nominations for The Killing Fields and The Mission, is also set to direct Texas Rangers. History is hoping to air the eight-hour series next year.
image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
