Oscar-nominated filmmaker Uberto Pasolini, who produced The Full Monty and most recently directed The Return, starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, is taking on a TV series adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s classic adventure novel Gulliver’s Travels. William Ivory (We Want Sex, The Great Escaper) is writing the screenplay for the six-episode project on which Pasolini will serve as showrunner.
The high-end show, now in early stages, is being produced by Roberto Sessa (The Sea Beyond) and Jan Wünschmann (The Swarm, Concordia). It will be unveiled to prospective broadcasters during the Series Mania festival in Lille.
Pasolini told Variety of the project:
“What Gulliver allows us to do today is to make something really, really fun. But at the same time – very much like Swift did in his time – to talk about the world around us; to talk about politics; to talk about greed; to talk about the place of the Western man in the world as a whole; to talk about the relationship between man and nature.”
“All that stuff was there in the original. And it sort of begs to be re-explored,” he added, noting that “Swift was having fun with his material, with his politics, with his scatology, with his obsession with the ship and sex and piss and action and all that kind of stuff.”
I remember having to read Gulliver’s Travels in high school, and I found it really difficult to get through. But maybe the subject material would be more interesting as an adult. Are you a fan of the book or previous adaptations?