Agatha Christie’s elderly detective Miss Marple is getting the big-screen treatment from Disney. After months of negotiations, the studio has closed a deal to capture the movie rights to the character, who first appeared in 1927.
Mark Frost has been tapped to pen the screenplay.
Marple was one of Christie’s most famous creations, an elderly woman constantly knitting or weeding, looking sweet and frail though the exterior masks a sharp mind with a deep understanding of the dark side of human nature.
Disney is not making a period movie however but looking do a contemporary version.
Jennifer Garner will produce the adaptation, which will not only be contemporary but see the age of amateur detective Marple brought down.
Hiring Frost may also signal an intent to make something with an edge. The writer, whose recent credits include penning the Fantastic Four movies, is best known for co-creating the landmark TV series Twin Peaks with David Lynch. [Hollywood Reporter]
Here’s how I’m imagining the conversation began at Disney:
We need a new franchise — a new character!
Let’s look at the stats. Oh, hey — this writer Agatha Christie is, according to Guinness, the best-selling author in the entire world!
Excellent. Let’s talk to her people and see if she’ll write something for us.
Ah. Well. She died in 1976.
Even better! She can’t ask for more money! Let’s just buy up something she already wrote.
“Miss Marple” seems to be very popular. They’ve done a whole bunch of TV series of it.
Great! Comes with a built-in fan base! We’ll sell millions of action figures.
I dunno. I can’t quite fathom how the brain trust at Disney came up with the decision to modernize Miss Marple by making her young and edgy. Seriously, what moron says “this is the best-selling mystery in the history of mysteries, so rather than leave it the way that billions of humans know it, we’ll change it to alienate the entire world of mystery fans.”
