Deadline reports that Freeform is developing a new series adaptation based on author Henry James’ 1898 horror novella The Turn of the Screw. The supernatural series will be set in the modern times with Alexandra McNally (Under the Dome) set to pen the pilot’s script.
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The Turn of the Screw is co-created by McNally and Josh Berman (CSI). It is a twisty Gothic soap which will follow Elena, a Mexican-American nanny who is hired to care for the two children of a widowed-father at their summer home on idyllic Bainbridge Island. It seems like the perfect job with potential for a ‘happily ever after’ ending, but things take a sinister turn when Elena begins seeing ghosts and her grip on what is real and what is not blurs.
“The Turn of the Screw is one of the scariest novels of all time. Yet the themes are as relevant today as they were more than a century ago,” Berman said.
The novella was put into continuous print for more than a 100 years which first appeared in serial format in Collier’s Weekly magazine from January 27 up until April 16, 1898. It has been adapted into different forms such as radio drama, film, stage play, and television.
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McNally and Berman will also serve as executive producers along with Sony Pictures Television and Osprey’s Head of Development and Production Chris King (Penny Dreadful).
