One of the latest crazes to hit the small screen has been network adaptations of movies. We have Lethal Weapon on Fox, Training Day on CBS, and Taken on NBC nowadays, and more are on the way. Now, a brand new remake is in the works, and it could lead to a series unlike anything else on the airwaves. An adaptation of the 2011 action adventure/fairy tale thriller Hanna could be headed to the small screen.
David Farr of The Night Manager fame is working on the potential series, according to a report from THR. He is responsible for co-writing the film, and he's slated to executive produce the show. The project is still in early stages of development, so we can't say for sure who will join Farr in production, but I'd say that it bodes well that the movie writer is on board. After all, the movie was a critical success and grossed $65 million on a $30 million budget. If Farr can bring the same touch to TV, a Hanna series could be a hit.
The 2011 movie starred Saoirse Ronan as the titular Hanna, who was a 16-year old girl raised in the wilderness by her former CIA operative father. He trained her to be an assassin with the goal of taking out the CIA agent responsible for her mother's death. When Hanna is forced to go on the run, she begins to travel with a family including a young daughter, whom Hanna befriends. She gets a taste of the normal life of a teenager...until her past catches up with her. Eric Bana played her father and Cate Blanchett played the agent who killed Hanna's mom.
Hanna is a film that really could work if stretched out into an ongoing series. Young Hanna went through so much as both a young woman and an assassin through the course of the movie that a TV show could actually spend more time delving into the conflicts between how she was raised and the lives she sees other people - as in, people not going through their formative years living off the land in Finland - living. A lot would likely depend on who NBCUniversal found to play Hanna. Saoirse Ronan was fantastic in the role as both the impressionable teenager and the hardened assassin. A series simply might not work unless an actress as capable as Ronan lands the part.
Of course, we're likely still a ways off from any news of casting. The Hanna project hasn't even been ordered to a pilot at this point, let alone begun searching for actors. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest in TV news, don't forget to take a look at our midseason TV premiere schedule, and be sure to check out our breakdown of 17 remakes and revivals that are in the works in addition to Hanna.
