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A Custody Battle, a Missing Friend and a Sky Full of Killers
Hitchcock’s feathered nightmare is headed back to the screen as a limited series at HBO, with Succession Emmy winner Sarah Snook set to lead, as first reported by Deadline. The network has picked up the project for development after Universal Global Television began shopping it over the summer, and the new take draws from both the 1963 film and the 1952 Daphne du Maurier novella that inspired it.
Rather than a straight remake, the show is a present-day reworking built around a murder mystery and an all-new set of characters. Snook plays Myra Massey, a mother who flees an ugly custody fight and brings her young daughter back to her hometown, where she quietly starts digging into the disappearance of a childhood friend. With a killer at large and danger closing in on her family, Myra soon has an even stranger threat to contend with: savage bird attacks that somehow seem connected to the crime.
Tom Spezialy, whose credits include HBO’s Watchmen and The Leftovers as well as Ash vs. Evil Dead, wrote the pilot and executive produces alongside Snook. David Heyman and Danny Samit are also on board through Heyday Television, Heyman’s joint venture with Universal Global Television, along with Jennifer Gabler Rawlings of Omni Artists. Universal Global Television will co-produce with HBO, while Universal Pictures and the du Maurier estate hold the rights to the property.
The series is the latest in a line of attempts to revisit the story, following a feature remake that was announced in 2007 with Naomi Watts attached and a BBC series that was set up in 2017. Neither made it to the screen, leaving Hitchcock’s original as the definitive version for more than six decades.
Network: HBO
Writer: Tom Spezialy
Cast: Sarah Snook
Executive Producers: Tom Spezialy, Sarah Snook, David Heyman, Danny Samit, Jennifer Gabler Rawlings
Studios: HBO, Universal Global Television
Release: Not yet announced (in development)
Source: Reporting and confirmation via Deadline.