‘The Head’s’ Mediapro Studio, Cuca Canals, Jorge Dorado Team for ‘The Young Poe’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent The Mediapro Studio is teaming with Spanish director Jorge Dorado and author Cuca Canals on detective thriller “The Young Poe” in a bid to build a second English-language international franchise on the heels and of the scale of “The Head,” sold to 90-plus territories and TMS’ biggest breakout hit to date.

Enrolling one of the biggest IPs in literary history, Edgar Allen Poe, the series adapts the hit novel saga of Spain’s Cuca Canals, co-screenwriter of Bigas Luna’s celebrated “Jamón Jamón” movie trilogy.

Canals’ novels imagine Poe as a precocious, irrepressible, neurotic and highly Gothic 11 or 12 year-old in 1820 Boston, grounding in true events of Poe’s childhood the extraordinarily analytical and morbid mind which Edgar Allen Poe brings to his fiction – whether 1841’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” commonly regarded as the first modern detective story, or the horror short stories such as “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Development on “The Young Poe” is headed by “Homeland” executive producer Ran Tellem, TMS international content development head, a role he also fulfilled on “The Head.” Dorado (“The Department of Time”), who directed Seasons 1 and 2 of “The Head,” will direct all six episodes of the first season of “The Young Poe.” Screenplays are being written by Dominic Harari y Teresa Pelegri (“The Food Guide to Love,” “Unconscious”).

With a bible, pilot script, director and novel saga base all in place, “The Young Poe” will be brought onto the market at Series Mania, which runs March 17-26.