Alexi Hawley to Create TV Series About Hostage Recovery Efforts for Lionsgate TV
Lionsgate Television has optioned journalist Adam Ciralsky’s Vanity Fair article “Take No Prisoners” to be developed as a series by showrunner Alexi Hawley.
The article details the work of the U.S. Special envoy for hostage affairs and his colleagues, working for the release of Americans held captive worldwide.
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Hawley, creator and showrunner of Netflix’s “The Recruit” and ABC’s “The Rookie,” has been tapped to create the series. His production company Perfectman Pictures is attached to produce the show alongside P3 Media. Ciralsky and Gene Klein will executive produce for P3 Media.
The series will follow one fictionalized hostage scenario per season and will be inspired by the article, which provides an in-depth look at the U.S. government’s commitment to freeing hostages. For the article, Ciralsky spent a year with Roger Carstens, the point man for freeing U.S. detainees held by world figures like Vladimir Putin and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Ciralsky witnessed negotiations, interviewed dozens of officials and was present for successful and unsuccessful hostage recovery missions.
Ciralsky’s other original reports have also been optioned and adapted for film and television through P3 Media, including “The Recruit,” which is heading into its second season on Netflix. The show follows a rookie CIA lawyer (Noah Centineo) who becomes entangled with a former asset who threaten to reveal Agency secrets.
Klein, who also serves as an executive producer on “The Recruit,” was an executive producer of the USA Network legal drama series “Suits,” along with its spinoff, “Pearson.”
Hawley’s ABC procedural drama “The Rookie” is heading into its seventh season.
(Pictured: Gene Klein, Adam Ciralsky and Alexi Hawley)
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