Siddharth Roy Kapur is a former MD of The Walt Disney Company India and he is currently working as the president of the Producers Guild of India. The producer recently announced that he is working on the TV adaptation of the book The Anarchy by William Dalrymple.
If that name sounds familiar to you, there’s a good reason for that. The Anarchy was recommended by none other than Imran Khan on his social media accounts last year.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B295btznpGs/?utm_source=ig_embed
The author also had a cheeky response to this development:
Newsflash: rare photo of man reading book on plane– while his friend reads his WhatsApp messages– goes viral in Pakistan…
‘Some guy’ in shalwar kameez is reading The Anarchy https://t.co/eLiMwUdiEP
— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) September 29, 2019
About The Anarchy
One of the bestselling books of 2019, it revolved around the rise of the East India Company against the Mughal Empire. Covering about 200 years, it tells the tale of how a trading start-up in London ended up being the richest and most powerful empire of the world.
The book received a lot of love – even Barack Obama listed it in his top favorite books of 2019.
Kapur says the adaptation of the book is very important, and it should be done in the right way.
When I read the book, I was so awestruck by the potential in the material. This is an important story to tell around the world.
It should be done in the right way, I’m in no hurry to jump in. I want to get the right creative talent associated with the project to give it the heft it needs for a global platform.
The Dangal producer also added that he is already working towards the making of this show.
We’re open to discussion across the board but my instinct is to get a great show-runner to start with, someone with the experience of helming a show of this scale. Both from the magnitude of the production and the intimate, interesting, intense and dramatic characters, which is inherent in the storytelling and needs to be drawn out.
He also mentioned that the writers will consist of a cross-cultural group from India as well as the West.
It would be great to get a collaborative, cross-cultural writers room in place, where you have talent from the U.S. and the UK as well as India, sitting together.
The Indian writers will be able to bring their very local perspective, flavor, texture, character, and when it comes to structure, something of this magnitude, a lot of help can come from writers in the West who are trained in doing that.
The Sky is Pink producer also hinted towards a production deal with a streaming company, but he says he is considering cable tv as well.
One would keep oneself open to all options at this point in time. Yes, a streaming service is an obvious home for this, but I am looking at cable as well.
Siddharth Roy Kapur already has a Netflix original Yeah Ballet to his name, and we’re excited to see how to adapts William Dalrymple’s bestselling book The Anarchy.
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