Terry Pratchett and Terry Jones to produce Discworld TV crime drama

Terry Pratchett and Terry Jones are collaborating on a new TV series that will feature criminal investigations in Discworld, with the city watch. It sounds awfully cool, despite the best efforts of Rod Brown, Managing Director of Prime Focus Productions to present it as cynical corporate drivel ("the globally successful Discworld franchise will readily translate to the small screen in the form of a high-end, mass appeal weekly drama series..."):

The main focus of the series will be set in the bustling, highly mercantile, largely untrustworthy and always vibrant city of Ankh-Morpork and will follow the day-to-day activities of the men, women, trolls, dwarves, vampires and several other species who daily pound its ancient cobbles (and, of course, Igor in the forensics department).
Terry commonly refers to the City Watch police force series as "the jewels in the Discworld Crown." These richly developed and highly compelling characters will feature in a 'crime of the week' episodic storyline. As each weekly adventure unfolds, viewers will be taken on a ride through Pratchett's genius imagination, with the author overseeing the creation of the series, where wild and exciting encounters with werewolves, dragons, dwarfs, trolls and golems and the classic heroes and villains, are an everyday occurrence...and where many of these characters even make outstanding crime fighters!

Terry Pratchett's Discworld Being Adapted To Crime-Of-The-Week Mystery TV Series (via IO9)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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yri

Nice! It’s a shame Peter Postelthwaite has died, though; I read that Sir Terry imagined him as the perfect Vimes.
- 13tales
  
  Yeah, though Terry always said he imagined Vimes as younger than Postlethwaite, if I remember.
  
  A couple of friends and I had a long conversation about Vimes casting on a long car trip once. I’m for Sean Pertwee, I think. Anyone else?
Shiawase

CSI Ankh-Morpork
(just have to get The Who to record “The Wizards Staff…”)
Anonymous

I wonder who will play Nobby Nobbs.
Chentzilla

I wonder, will we see Lewton from Discworld Noir?
- Anonymous
  
  Uh! That would be cool!
- Keir
  
  I hope so, that was my first thought too! I doubt it though.
mindysan33

Wait, is that in addition to this:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/monty-python-writer-adapt-neil-168792

Both will/would be awesome.

Also, I’m ready for some new discworld novels now, please. The last Tiffany Aching book was quite good, as was the Unseen Academicals.
- mindysan33
  
  Duh, me. RTFA before commenting, please. It mentions the Good Omens thing too. Same production company, etc.
  
  Back to translating German badly.
Anonymous

Hope this turns out better than the godawful Sky One adaptations we’ve had to endure so far.
TooGoodToCheck

I’m pretty optimistic about this. According to IMDB, Rod Brown was the dude who produced the TV adaptations of Hogfather & Color Of Magic, which were both charming, competent adaptations.
chip

Discworld adaptations have been getting much better. The animated witches features from a while back were horrible, but Hogfather and Going Postal were quite good. I just hope the city watch series continues the trend. I’m a huge Pratchett fan, and can’t wait to see what they come up with.
Anonymous

First Good Omens, now Diskworld, yay!

With any luck it will be easier to the TV series to happen than the Good Omens movie project.

The only way I could be any happier would be if Pratchett revealed that he was just playing a cruel trick with this Alzheimers business.
RadioSilence

as long as David fucking Jason isn’t playing every fucking leading role.
- guernican
  
  That’s a national fucking treasure you’re talking about there. Where would we be without Pop Larkin and Inspector Frost… oh.
- akbar56
  
  Every lead role? Please. He played a lead in one Discworld adaptation and a supporting in a second and wasn’t in the third.
Anonymous

Please update us all when there’s a title and airdate. My DVR is quivering with anticipation. (Or maybe it’s an earthquake… never know living in California.)
Trent Hawkins

Some of the newer adaptations were nice but I felt they really failed to deliver any of the comedy and were quite dry and unnecessarily dragged on for too long.

Still, looking forward to seeing this.
Anonymous

Steven Fry for Aziraphale, with his old sparring mate, Hugh Laurie as Crowley. both good actors, both fantastic comic timing,
Godfree

@ Trent Hawkins: I agree. Hogfather and Color of Magic were delightfully faithful to the action and dialogue and tone of the original books, but a great part of the enjoyment of reading Pratchett comes from the author’s witty writing style. A TON of humor gets dropped without it.
hijukal

Discworld: Yes!
Crime procedural: No!

Torn, but would definitely watch the first episode.
bardfinn

“If you lose your cow, you should report this to the Watch under the Domestic and Farmyard Animals (LOST) Act of 1809. They will swing into action with keenness and speed. Your cow will be found. If it has been impersonating other animals, it may be arrested.”
nanuq

I wonder what their special effects budget will be like.