'Fall' by John Preston Optioned for Television
Working Title has optioned the rights to John Preston's new non-fiction book, Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell. The book, published by Viking in the UK and HarperCollins in the US, chronicles the business tycoon’s rise, scandalous fall and untimely death. A Czech immigrant to the UK, Maxwell built a publishing empire, and became an MP, before he was found dead overboard from his yacht in 1991; it was posthumously discovered that he had improperly used funds from the Mirror Publishing group’s pension pot to cover his other companies from bankruptcy.
Working Title’s Head of Drama Surian Fletcher-Jones will oversee the project’s development as a limited series, which will be produced by the company’s founders Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. John Preston says, "Robert Maxwell is one of the fascinating, complex figures of the 20th Century and I think Working Title are the perfect people to turn it into a television series."