If there is a more in-demand writer these days in both movies and TV than Jack Thorne, I can’t think of one.
Coming off his Emmy- and BAFTA-winning (and just about every other award) run as co-creator and writer of the global sensation Adolescence, he is back this season with another four-part adaptation of Lord of the Flies — which, like Adolescence, has become a big hit for Netflix and has him back in the Emmy race.
Thorne joins me for this episode of my Deadline video series Behind the Lens to talk about taking on this iconic book that has been made into feature films twice before, but here gets a whole new take in the limited series format, each episode focusing on four different boys. He also talks about the tough five-month Malaysian location shoot and the difficult casting process in finding not just the four main boys but also the rest of the young cast numbering more than 30, most of them never having acted in front of a camera before. He compares this story of youth in crisis to Adolescence and talks about how he has been drawn to telling stories of young people.
And speaking of youth, Thorne is working with director Sam Mendes on the four biopic movies the director is simultaneously making focusing on the young Beatles — John, Paul, Ringo and George — with the current plan by Sony to release all four films the same day. He tells me why he can’t talk about it yet, but it has been actively in production for the past year.
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Quite frankly I don’t know how Thorne finds time to do all of this, as he is prepping a new film version of Seance on a Wet Afternoon, the classic 1964 British film that will now star Rachel Weisz, and is working on numerous other projects coming up as well.
His films have included Wonder with Julia Roberts and The Aeronauts with Eddie Redmayne, along with the Enola Holmes movies for Netflix (the third is coming out this summer), Swimmers and on and on.
To watch our conversation and to go “behind the lens” with Jack Thorne, just click on the link above.