Emma Thompson Teams With Bad Wolf on 1970s Horror-Thriller Harrow’s Alley For HBO

Emma Thompson is set to bring one of Hollywood’s long-lost scripts to the screen. Deadline reports that Thompson has partnered with production shingle Bad Wolf to develop Harrow’s Alley, which was originally written in the 1970 by Walter Newman (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven). HBO has also come on board to the project.

The period horror thriller was once set to star George C. Scott, and John Huston was looking at directing the film at one point. The seventeenth century-set story took place in an English town falling apart due the Black Plague, with two men trying to survive the dangers of the time. However, film executives were scared by the prospect of trying to put the “dark subject matter” on the screen, and budget requirements contributed to its never being made. The site reports that Thompson has been trying to get a new script written since the early 2000s.

Newman once referred to the film as the “high point of my professional life, a creative frenzy for nearly 12 wonderful months.” He passed away in 1993, still believing that one day Hollywood was “going to get it made.” His 172-page script, which is well-known and taught in some film classes, will be used as the basis for the TV film.