Park Chan-wook to Helm New le Carré Miniseries

Screen Rant

Oldboy Director to Helm Little Drummer Girl Miniseries at AMC

By Kevin Yeoman

Published Nov 5, 2017

Oldboy and The Handmaiden director Park Chan-wook will direct all six episodes of John le Carré's Little Drummer Girl at AMC.

After the success of The Night Manager miniseries starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie, AMC and BBC are moving full steam ahead with another adaptation of the work of John le Carré, by bringing the author's 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl to TV with Oldboy director Park Chan-wook at the helm. The new six-part miniseries will follow the recently announced adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold that will hit both BBC and AMC sometime next year, but the news that an acclaimed filmmaker the caliber of Chan-wook is working on the new project certainly raises the profile of Drummer Girl considerably.

Movement on the project is surprisingly far along. In addition to Chan-wook, Little Drummer Girl has also already found its lead in Lady Macbeth star Florence Pugh, who will play Charlie, a young British actress who finds herself entangled in some international intrigue when a member of Israeli intelligence has designs on making her a double agent. Soon after, Charlie's undertaking involves locating a Palestinian terrorist named Khalil. No word yet on who will be filling either roles of Charlie's recruiter or Khalil.

Related: The Night Manager is That Stylish Spy Thriller You Didn’t Know You Needed

Unlike The Night Manager, which saw its original story updated to be a contemporary retelling of the novel, both The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and The Little Drummer Girl will retain their original 1960s and 1980s settings. That will not only keep le Carré fans happy but the settings should make for some visually enticing television, complete with period-appropriate trappings that, in the case of Drummer Girl, will have a director like Chan-wook to make it even more appealing.

Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager pilot episode

Like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, this won't be the first live-action adaptation of this particular novel. The Little Drummer Girl was made into a film just a year after the book was published, which was directed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid director George Roy Hill and starred Diane Keaton in the lead role. The film was met with mixed reviews upon its release, meaning this upcoming adaptation will have an easier time winning over the hearts of the le Carré faithful than those who remember the Richard Burton-led Spy.

It also won't hurt the upcoming miniseries' chances to impress with Chan-wook helming all six episodes. This is the biggest behind-the-camera name the BBC/AMC le Carré collaborations have landed so far, with Susan Bier helming The Night Manager and Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy tackling Spy (a director has yet to be officially announced). With an incredible body of work that includes Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Lady Vengeance, the underrated Stoker, and last year's lavish The Handmaiden, making the move to television to adapt Drummer Girl marks an unexpected but exciting move for the director.