Limited series of The Constant Gardener in the works

The Ink Factory is working on a limited television adaptation of John le Carré's The Constant Gardener in a "post-pandemic context", nearly two decades after the Oscar-winning film. Lydia Adetunji, writer of His Dark Materials and Noughts and Crosses, is writing the series adaptation, Deadline reveals, but no network or cast has yet been attached.

The television version has been described as a "post-pandemic" contemporary retelling of one of John le Carré's most popular novels.

The Constant Gardener follows Justin Quayle, a British diplomat and avid horticulturist who meets an Amnesty International activist, Tessa, in London. After a romance, they embark on a journey where a brutal murder, government corruption and corporate fraud converge in a plot that unravels across Kenya, the United Kingdom and continental Europe.



The 2005 film, directed by Fernando Meirelles of City of God, starred Ralph Fiennes as Quayle and Rachel Weisz (pictured) as Tessa. Weisz won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and the film received three more nominations.

Simon Cornwell and Stephen Cornwell, co-owners of The Ink Factory, said: "It's exciting to reimagine The Constant Gardener in a contemporary, post-pandemic context, and to anchor the story in an authentic, modern Kenya with all its wealth, politics and energy. Lydia's bold, suspenseful yet lyrical approach to the adaptation tells a story that will keep audiences on the edge of their seats - intensely relevant in the modern world, and simply beautiful."

Adetunji said she "loves the passionate love story and gripping thriller" of the novel, which was published in 2001.

The Ink Factory is also in the middle of the television treatment of another former le Carré film adaptation, A Most Wanted Man, as it makes a second season of The Night Manager starring Tom Hiddleston for the BBC and Amazon Prime Video. In addition to le Carré, Cornwell's is producing a Korean series adaptation of Un Su Kim's The Plotters, a series based on Lara Prescott's The Secrets We Kept and another project based on C Pam Zhang's How Much of These Hills is Gold.