Ex-Uber Driver Author Adrian McKinty Adds New Link To Fare-y Tale Breakout ‘The Chain’: Media Res Makes 7-Figure TV Deal

Mike Fleming Jr

30 May 2024 at 0:45 pm·3-min read

EXCLUSIVE: Media Res, the company behind Apple’s The Morning Show, has paid 7-figures to secure rights to Adrian McKinty’s global bestselling novel The Chain. The plan is to turn the thriller into a TV series.

Writer/producer Shane Salerno (Avatar: The Way of Water) will be executive producer along with Media Res’ Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer. McKinty will be a Co-EP. Media Res and Salerno will next enlist a showrunner and actress to play the lead role and shop that package.

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The Chain is a conspiracy thriller page-turner about an ordinary mother facing every parent’s worst nightmare: Her child is taken on her way to school. To get her back, the people behind the kidnapping plot – they call themselves The Chain – demand she do the unimaginable in exchange. A wicked, delirious puzzle piece that places audiences in the protagonist’s heart-pounding dilemma, The Chain is an exploration of a classic question with some very novel answers: Must the sins of the past plague the present?

The TV deal turn is the latest chapter and the second big deal for the novel that transformed McKinty from a frustrated author who supported his family driving an Uber in Australia into a full-time author. Little Brown published the novel in 43 countries, and Salerno’s The Story Factory made a 7-figure movie deal with Universal and Working Title. Edgar Wright was signed to direct and he co-wrote the script with Jane Goldman. The project quietly moved from Universal to Sony and got close with Emily Blunt set to star, before it stalled.

Ellenberg had long been passionate about the book and the prospect of it driving a series, starting over from scratch. The company, which got a major recent investment from RedBird IMI, has small screen credits include The Morning Show with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon for Apple TV+, the Jessica Chastain-Oscar Isaac-starrer Scenes From A Marriage for HBO, and Pachinko for Apple TV+.

This marks the 32nd major film or TV deal for Salerno’s The Story Factory, which brokers the publishing deals along with the ancillary pacts. Recent deals the T.J. Newman novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421 at Warner Brothers with Paul Greengrass directing and Steve Kloves adapting, Heat 2 at Warner Brothers with Michael Mann writing/producing/directing an adaptation of his novel, Don Winslow’s City on Fire trilogy at Sony/3000 with Austin Butler starring and producing with David Heyman, Crime 101 at Amazon with Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo starring, Falling at Universal with Newman and Salerno adapting her novel. Brilliance from Marcus Sakey’s trilogy is at Paramount with Will Smith, Akiva Goldsman writing and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy directing, and Don Winslow’s The Winter of Frankie Machine is also at Paramount with Christopher Storer (The Bear) directing.

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