Lucifer Box Coming To TV!

I'm a little behind on this news, but my friend Phil just alerted me that the BBC plan to film Mark Gatiss' first Lucifer Box novel, The Vesuvius Club!!! Box is an Edwardian dandy who also serves "by appointment to His Majesty" as a secret agent extrordinaire. Details are sketchy, but The Bookseller reports that "the project has not yet been cast but it is envisaged that Gatiss, who dressed as a dandy on his publicity tour for The Vesuvius Club, will play the hero as well as write the adaptation." Personally, I wouldn't have pictured Gatiss as Box, but I certainly don't doubt he could pull it off! There's no information on how long the adaptation will be, whether it will be a movie, a mini-series, or a whole series. I imagine if it's a two-hour movie, Gatiss' script will probably resemble his graphic novel adaptation of his book. That would be a shame, in my opinion, as it excises many of the best parts and eliminates some great characters. If Box is going to be on TV, a mini-series is probably the way to go, so that Gatiss can wallow in all the sordid Victorian/Edwardian decadence he so loves as much as he wants to!

Some web sources are reporting that the Beeb has optioned the entire Box trilogy, including The Devil In Amber (my favorite book of recent years) and the forthcoming third novel (tentatively titled Claw Hammer), which is said to be inspired by Ian Fleming's Casino Royale-era Bond novels. I really hope this is true, as I would love to see The Devil In Amber filmed! It really demands to be a big-budget theatrical movie, but it seems very unlikely that a studio would put that kind of money behind a bisexual hero, so a BBC version is certainly the next-best thing.

The official Lucifer Box website hasn't been updated in years, unfortunately, so it offers no additional information.