Filmmaker Siddharth Roy Kapur’s production house, Roy Kapur Films (RKF) has acquired the rights to adapt author William Dalrymple’s book “The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of The East India Company” into a series. Encompassing a period from 1599 to 1802, the book traces the rise of The East India Company against the decline and fall of the storied Mughal Empire.
Roy Kapur said he intends to put together a team of international writers and showrunners to create a series that will be “pathbreaking in scale and quality“.
“I believe that stories that are compelling, relevant and authentic have the potential to resonate with audiences across all nationalities and cultures. William Dalrymple’s epic tale of The East India Company is one such story,” the producer said in a statement.
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Roy Kapur, who backed films such as “The Sky is Pink” and “Yeh Ballet” under RKF, said that adaptation of the book is relevant in the current times as there is a debate around corporations and individuals amassing power to “wield control over minds and nations”.
“What could be more relevant to global viewers than the true story of the takeover of an entire subcontinent by a small trading company,” he added.
Author-historian Dalrymple, who is on board as a consultant for the project, said he hasn’t written a book more “obviously crying out to be adapted” than “The Anarchy”.
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“I’m very excited looking at the initial treatment note, talking about the various ways to bring this book alive and to bring the characters I’ve been living with over the last 6 years onto the screen... So that everyone else can see them in flesh and blood.
“It’s an incredibly exciting moment and I have high expectations of this project,” he added.
The pre-production work on the series is expected to start soon.