TNT Giving ‘Cracker’ Another Shot
British Series Coming to America … Again
Despite ABC’s failed first attempt in 1997 to adapt the intense 1990s U.K. crime drama Cracker for American audiences with a version starring deceased Murphy Brown veteran Robert Pastorelli, basic cable’s TNT is reportedly ready to try again after purchasing the North American rights to the series from Granada America.
I, for one, will be among the many, many happy viewers if the network manages to get it right this time. The fact that acclaimed actor Robert Duvall is onboard as an executive producer seems like a good preliminary sign, too.
Before Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane became famous worldwide playing Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies, he was arguably best known as the star of Granada’s original U.K. hit Cracker. Coltrane portrayed the title character, a nickname for Manchester-based criminal psychologist Dr. Eddie “Fitz” Fitzgerald, who was both brilliant and thoroughly unlikeable to all but the few who “got” him, and even some of the latter didn’t care for his abrasive attitude either.
Granada America executive Julie Meldal-Johnsen is correct when she tells The Hollywood Reporter that “American cable, edgier and more open, would be a better venue for [a Cracker adaptation] than broadcast [television].” The complex personality of the lead character is going to make the role a difficult one to cast, however, which means one of the showrunners’ first and most painstaking tasks is to find the perfect actor. I can’t wait to learn who they pick.
Image: Screenshot
