British gangster classic Sexy Beast to be adapted for TV series

Sexy Beast, Jonathan Glazer’s stylish and bellicose 2000 gangster film, is being adapted for a prequel TV series by one of the writers of The Sopranos.

Deadline reports that Michael Caleo, who was part of David Chase’s writing team on the HBO series, will create the show. It will tell the origin stories of the unhinged duo Don Logan and Teddy Bass and the retired, reluctant gangster Gal Dove. Thes role were played by Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane and Ray Winstone respectively in the original movie.

Sexy Beast’s writers – Louis Mellis and David Scinto – will serve as executive producers alongside Caleo. The yet-to-be-titled project, which is in development, is expected to chart the rise of Dove before his retirement in Spain, which is the focus of the Glazer film, in which Logan attempts to persuade him back for one last job.

The original was widely praised on its release. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said it had “something of Stephen Frears’s 1984 movie The Hit and a sliver of Get Carter in its hint of sexual envy and self-loathing,” adding that it boasted “a nicely judged and humane performance from Ray Winstone”.

Kingsley’s performance earned him an Oscar nomination and was described as “a study in violence always about to unspring”. The Observer called Logan “one of British film’s most memorable villains”.

The film won a host of awards, including best film at the British Independent Film awards, and was included in the Observer’s list of best British films between 1984 and 2009.