Doctors And Dream Team Alumnus Writes Novel Optioned By Ridley Scott

Tom Rob Smith has written for some seriously dodgy TV shows here in the UK - Doctors is a rather weak afternoon soap about - guess what - doctors; Dream Team was another soap, this one about a fictional football team (as in soccer). I'm not blaming Smith for the shows being poor - I don't know how much of the blame is his at all. For all I know he was probably slumming it just to pay the rent.

Smith is now making inroads to movieland. As well as scripting a feature adaptation of Jeff Noon's Somewhere the Shadow and two original screenplays for thrillers called Whistleblower and Put Together, he's now had his novel Child 44 optioned by Scott Free productions, for Ridley to direct. That seems like one heck of an endorsement.

Child 44 is set in Stalinist Russia and revolves around a wrongly accused secret policeman on the run. He stumbles across a series of child murders and risks his anonymity to try and stop them. Writing this must have exercised completely different muscles than pumping out a little pile of Dream Team.

Well done, though, Mr. Smith. This career trajectory is not unlike going from the writer's table at General Hospital or The Bold and the Beautiful to writing the next film for Sam Raimi. Of course I'm jealous - though, in my case it would have to be a transition from directing Take the High Road to something gorgeous like We3.

A footnote: Smith is also working on a TV show called Powers, which I've tried in vain to uncover more about. Could it be an adaptation of the Brian Michael Bendis comic series?