Netflix Locks Down U.S. Rights to Lord of the Flies Series From the Creator of Adolescence
Netflix has secured U.S. distribution rights to the BBC’s Lord of the Flies, bringing the classic survival tale to American audiences.
Heads up: Netflix just grabbed the U.S. rights to the BBC's new Lord of the Flies. The latest take on the 72-year-old novel dropped in the U.K. less than a week ago, and now it's officially headed stateside.
The setup
'When a group of boys crash-land on a deserted island, their fight for survival spirals into something much darker.'
This version sticks to the 1950s. A plane full of schoolboys goes down on a deserted Pacific island, and the usual order-vs-chaos tug-of-war kicks off. Two kids step up: Ralph (Winston Sawyers), who tries to keep things structured and sane with help from the group's thinker, Piggy (David McKenna), and Jack (Lox Pratt), who gets put on signal fire duty and decides he'd rather chase power and go hunting. From there, the group slides away from rules and rescue and toward, well, tragedy.
The BBC dropped the first trailer with its U.K. run, and it plays the story as a sun-blasted nightmare: sunburned school uniforms, a conch that isn't fixing anything, and leadership that looks a lot like intimidation. The innocence does not last long.
Cast
- Winston Sawyers as Ralph
- Lox Pratt as Jack
- David McKenna as Piggy
- Ike Talbut as Simon
- Thomas Connor as Roger
- Noah as Sam
- Cassius Flemyng as Eric
- Cornelius Brandreth as Maurice
- Tom Page-Turner as Bill
Who is making it
Jack Thorne wrote and created the series. Marc Munden directed all four episodes, with Joel Wilson executive producing. Sony Pictures Television said on Friday that Netflix will handle the U.S. run.
Thorne's coming in hot: Adolescence won Emmys and became Netflix's second-most-watched English-language series ever, only behind Wednesday season 1. Expectations here are not small.