Patricia Highsmith‘s literary creation Tom Ripley has been featured in five books, and five subsequent movies. Everyone has seen 1999’s "The Talented Mr. Ripley," everyone should see 1960’s "Purple Noon," while the other films are perhaps less well remembered. Indeed, a decade has passed since Barry Pepper took the title role in "Ripley Under Ground" for Roger Spottiswoode. But the character is coming back to life, in a whole other medium.
THR reports that Highsmith’s Tom Ripley is headed to TV. The plan by producers Guymon Casady, Ben Forkner, and Philipp Keel is to "expand" on both "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Purple Noon," though what that exactly means isn’t clear, except that this developing take will probably focus on the younger years of the con artist and killer. This is still early days, and the plan is to attach a name brand actor or director to the property first, before pitching it to TV studios, which is pretty standard practice.
But no doubt, Tom Ripley is a great character, and one that could definitely benefit from having a lot of narrative room to play with. It’s a project with a lot of possibilities, with solid source material, and it’ll be interesting to see who comes circling.