EXCLUSIVE: Contemporary off the again of the important success of the BBC’s What it Feels Like for a Woman, Hera Footage has optioned Nothing Good Occurs After 2am, a novel about London’s cutthroat world of high-end cocktail making.
Set to be tailored for TV, Nothing Good Occurs After 2am is Irish writer Niamh Hargan’s third novel and begins behind the unmarked door of speakeasy Love and Demise, tucked away in East London. There, rising stars Robbie Saunders and El Tippett are locked in a risky dance of rivalry and chemistry, preventing for the approval of their enigmatic boss, Otto Kettinger. Because the bar’s legend grows, their relationship begins to fray.
Hera mentioned the novel, which can publish subsequent January, was received “in a fiercely aggressive bidding conflict.” Conversations are already underway with “top-tier screenwriters,” the indie added.
Based mostly on Paris Lees’ coming-of-age memoir, Hera’s What It Feels Like for a Woman launched on BBC Three earlier this month to important acclaim. The indie can be engaged on Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, and The Return of Stanley Atwell with Marisa Abela and Nicholas Galitzine. In TV, it optioned Joanna Quinn’s The Whalebone Theatre final yr.
Hera founder Liza Marshall mentioned: “From its first web page, Nothing Good Occurs After 2am had us fully hooked — it’s sharp, attractive, and brimming with ambiance. Niamh has created a world that feels each thrillingly glamorous and emotionally uncooked, with characters who ache with ambition, want, and heartbreak. It’s precisely the type of daring, fashionable storytelling we love at Hera, and we’re thrilled to deliver it to the display.”
Hargan’s earlier novels are Twelve Days in Might and The Break-Up Clause. Her movie and tv Rights are dealt with by Anna Weguelin and Gemma Craig on behalf of Sheila Crowley and Sabhbh Curran at Curtis Brown.