‘Burn’: J.J. Abrams And Bad Robot Producing TV Series About A Dragon Who Lives On A Farm During The Cold War
J.J. Abramsand his Bad Robot production company have a new TV project in the works. It’s calledBurn, and the show will be an adaptation of authorPatrick Ness’s new fantasy novel about a Cold War family that hires a dragon to work on their farm.
HarperCollins published Patrick Ness’s novelBurnin July of this year, and now Deadline reports that Bad Robot is developing the book into a TV show, with Ness on board to executive produce and write the show. And yes, you read that headline correctly:Burnis about a dragon who lives on a farm during the Cold War. Here’s how Amazon describes the plot:
On a cold Sunday evening in early 1957, Sarah Dewhurst waited with her father in the parking lot of the Chevron gas station for the dragon he’d hired to help on the farm…Sarah Dewhurst and her father, outcasts in their little town of Frome, Washington, are forced to hire a dragon to work their farm, something only the poorest of the poor ever have to resort to.The dragon, Kazimir, has more to him than meets the eye, though. Sarah can’t help but be curious about him, an animal who supposedly doesn’t have a soul but who is seemingly intent on keeping her safe.Because the dragon knows something she doesn’t. He has arrived at the farm with a prophecy on his mind. A prophecy that involves a deadly assassin, a cult of dragon worshippers, two FBI agents in hot pursuit—and somehow, Sarah Dewhurst herself.
This seems like the type of show that could only happen in the wake ofGame of Thronesbringing dragons into the prestige TV space, and I wonder if Bad Robot’s work onLovecraft Country– another show which uses genre to tell high-concept, swing-for-the-fences stories – gave them the confidence that they could pull something like this off.
Ness has ten books under his belt, including theChaos Walkingtrilogy (which was adapted into a movie years ago starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley that will finally be released in 2021), and he also wrote the screenplay for the 2016 J.A. Bayona-directedA Monster Callsmovie based on his own book. J.J. Abrams will executive produce this new adaptation alongside Bad Robot’sBen Stephenson. It will be produced in association with Warner Bros. Television, and considering Abrams is signed to a mega-deal with WB, that likely means this will end up as either an HBO series or an HBO Max original.
