Sarah Snook, the Emmy Award-winning Succession actor, is set to star in a series based on Daphne du Maurier’s novella The Birds, reports Deadline. HBO has landed the project, which reunites Snook with the studio after their collaboration on the critically acclaimed series Succession. This is not the first adaptation of The Birds; the previous one from director Alfred Hitchcock stars Tippi Hedren in her feature film debut.
The series is billed as a modern and visceral reimagining of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1963 film centring on a mysterious murder with new characters, including a female protagonist. The story follows Myra Massey (Sarah Snook), who comes back home alongside her daughter following a bitter legal dispute for custody. As Massey looks into the disappearance of a longtime friend, Massey must navigate personal threats from a killer and a flock of attacking birds mysteriously linked to a crime while protecting her daughter.
Tom Spezialy is the writer of the first episode of the limited series, bringing him back together with HBO after his work as an executive producer for the studio's series The Leftovers and Watchmen. Spezialy and Snook also serve as executive producers for The Birds series adaptation alongside Danny Samit and David Heyman of Heyday Television and Jennifer Gabler Rawlings of Omni Artists.
Universal Global Television is also attached to the project; it is worth noting that Heyday Television is Heyman's joint venture with UGT. Notably, UGT's sibling studio, namely Universal Pictures, backed the Alfred Hitchcock film and shares the adaptation rights to its source novel with Du Maurier Estate. Notably, Heyman is also associated with HBO's upcoming Harry Potter series as an executive producer.
The series, which had been in the works at UGT for over a year, serves as another major attempt to adapt Maurier's source novel. Naomi Watts was set to star in a remake from director Martin Campbell that was announced back in 2007, and playwright Conor McPherson was attached to a series adaptation for BBC announced ten years later, but neither project was materialised.
