The Essex Serpent (Apple TV)

Colette and The Imitation Game star Keira Knightley has found her next period drama – an adaptation of Sarah Perry’s novel The Essex Serpent for Apple TV+.

The streamer has ordered the project to series from See-Saw Films, the company behind The King’s Speech and Top of the Lake. It will be directed by Dark River and The Selfish Giant director Clio Barnard and is written by Mrs Wilson writer Anna Symon.

The Essex Serpent follows newly widowed Cora, played by Knightley, who, having being released from an abusive marriage, relocates from Victorian London to the small village of Aldwinter in Essex, intrigued by a local superstition that a mythical creature known as the Essex Serpent has returned to the area.

Set in 1893, the book was published by Serpent’s Tail, an imprint of Profile Books in 2016 and was named Book of the Year by the British Book Awards that year.

Stranamente mi era completamente sfuggito questo libro

EW has your first look at Danes in the Apple TV+ series The Essex Serpent, the Homeland star's first role since that series concluded last year. Based on the bestselling novel by Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent follows newly widowed Cora (Danes), who finds herself released from an abusive marriage. She relocates from Victorian London to the small Essex village of Aldwinter, intrigued by a local superstition that a mythical creature known as the Essex Serpent has returned to the area. (...) The actress recently replaced Keira Knightley in the lead role after the Atonement star bowed out of the project "due to family reasons," as her rep told PEOPLE in a statement in October. "As the COVID cases increase in the U.K. and additional lockdown and restriction rules are potentially being imposed, with so many unknowns, there wasn't a comfortable scenario for Keira that could be put in place for an extended period of child care required for the 4.5-month production," the rep added.