The Bone Season:

Even a dreamer can start a revolution.

The year is 2059 and nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, employed to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds. For Paige has an unusual gift, she is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and in her world she commits treason simply by breathing. But outside the repressive boundaries of Scion, a powerful, otherworldly race waits in the shadows. The Season has come and Paige’s life is about to change for ever.

Andy  Serkis

Andy Serkis rose to fame – although he was around for some time earlier – as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings movies. but now his production company, Imaginarium Studios, has picked up the rights to Samantha Shannon’s bestselling The Bone Season.

Shannon, who is being hailed as the next JK Rowling, has released the book as the first in a series of seven. Serkis has been talking about what attracted him to the book/series and FTN has this exclusive interview for you guys…

“We all immediately saw its potential as a fantastic feature film,” Serkis told us. “She’s very warm and a passionate storyteller – dedicated beyond belief. We’re working very closely with her on all aspects of bringing the world of the book to the screen. We’ve been involving her with all the early concept artwork that we’re beginning to put together. Obviously it’s her world so we want to make sure we bring it to life in the way that she wants.”

Q: What is it about The Bone Season that compelled you to include it in The Imaginarium Studio’s very first slate of films?

A: We first came across the manuscript at the London Book Fair and immediately fell in love with the scope, the scale and the exceptional detail of the world Samantha had created. It’s a really compelling story with such a great central character – we all immediately saw its potential as a fantastic feature film.

Q: Have you met Samantha Shannon and how involved will she be in the film’s production?

A: Yes of course – she’s a delightful, incredibly intelligent person. She’s very warm and a passionate storyteller- dedicated beyond belief. We’re working very closely with her on all aspects of bringing the world of the book to the screen. We’ve been involving her with all the early concept artwork that we’re beginning to put together. Obviously it’s her world so we want to make sure we bring it to life in the way that she wants.

Obviously it’s her world [Samantha] so we want to make sure we bring it to life in the way that she wants

Q: Can you tell us about how the creative process for adapting a story like The Bone Season begins?

A: It begins with knowing the story you want to tell. There are thousands of stories contained within the world that Samantha has created- we have to be very disciplined about opening up the world in a way that will lead us on to further investigation in the rest of the series. We need to find the emotional heart of the story; the relationships; the tension; the suspense and the drive, and of course working closely with Samantha is going to make it much easier.

At this very early stage it’s about finding the right writer and the right approach to telling the story. Hand in hand with developing the screenplay it’s also about developing the visual world and bringing that to life, finding the right visual effects team who understand Samantha’s concepts.

Q: You have been part of bringing some of the world’s most famous and well-loved fantasy worlds to contemporary audiences. Which of your experiences across film, tv, stage and video games would you say has been most helpful in preparing you to produce The Bone Season?

A: It would be impossible to single out any one single experience, it’s an accumulation of all my experiences to date, but obviously having worked on The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s extraordinary world with Peter Jackson is incredibly useful. Peter basically gave me the opportunity to work on a lot of extraordinary characters in a lot of extraordinary worlds and has opened up my eyes to a genre that I knew very little about before.

Q: Will performance capture will come mostly into play when portraying Shannon’s Rephaim race on screen in The Bone Season? Can you give us any insight into how you’d like these characters to appear?

A: We’re in very early stages of designing how we want to portray these characters, and are exploring a variety of avenues to bring these characters to life. We’re certainly not tied to any one production technique at this early stage.

Q: Animal Farm is the other film on your inaugural slate. What can you tell us about this project?

A: We’re extraordinarily excited about Animal Farm. We have been working on the methodology this year, the development of the characters and the story. We’re working with a wonderful character designer and very pleased with how the animals are developing as visual characters.

In terms of story, we’re remaining very truthful to the original book however we are relocating the setting as if Orwell were writing in the present day – we’ve been working very closely with the Orwell estate on this.

Peter [Jackson] gave me the opportunity to work on a lot of extraordinary worlds and has opened up my eyes to a genre that I knew very little about before

Q: You’re talents are very varied! If you could only do one thing for the rest of your career, which would you choose (stage/tv/film/video game roles, voice roles, director or producer)?

A: Mountain Climber.