SISTER has acquired the exclusive rights to adapt the critically-acclaimed Lydia Millet novel, A Children’s Bible, into a limited series. A Children’s Bible is hailed as prescient and powerful, and ranked as a National Book Award Finalist and New York Times Top 10 Best Books of the Year pick. Kate Fenske will executive produce for SISTER alongside Sundance Institute Alum, Tayarisha Poe, who will also write and direct. Complementary Colors’ Jonah Disend, who has a first look with SISTER, will serve as a co-executive producer.
A Children’s Bible marks the second New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year to be adapted by SISTER as earlier this year the company announced it earned the rights to Oprah’s June Book Club pick, James McBride’s Deacon King Kong. The celebrated McBride book was also brought to SISTER by Disend, who will also produce the ongoing series under his first look deal alongside Kate Fenske and Carolyn Strauss.
A Children’s Bible is a hauntingly beautiful story of generational divides, apocalyptic climate change and who we become when nothing is familiar. It follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group’s ringleaders decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.
Stacey Snider, SISTER’s Global CEO and Co-Founder said, “Lydia Millet has created an epic work of art, equal parts allegory and page turning literary sensation. SISTER is honored to bring this sublime, brilliant story to life as a series and will do so with the care, magic and artistry that the book deserves.”
Tayarisha Poe is a writer, director, and photographer from Philadelphia. In 2017 she was selected for the Sundance Screenwriters/Directors Lab and was awarded the Pew Fellowship. In 2019 she was named by Variety as one of the 10 Directors to Watch for her directorial debut SELAH AND THE SPADES. SELAH AND THE SPADES premiered at Sundance 2019 and was subsequently released by Amazon who are adapting it into a series.
For television, SISTER is currently producing adaptations of Naomi Alderman’s literary phenomenon The Power for Amazon Studios and Adam Kay’s international best seller This Is Going to Hurt for BBC and AMC. The award-winning modern studio is also in development on The Jungle Prince of Delhi for Amazon, based on Ellen Barry’s acclaimed story and podcast for The New York Times, directed by Mira Nair, and Helena Merrimen’s buzzy BBC Radio 4 podcast Tunnel 29, which has scored more than 5 million downloads worldwide. Also in the pipeline are Sian-Robins Grace darkly comic horror, The Baby for Sky and HBO, and sibling writing duo Penelope and Ginny Skinner’s con-man thriller The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies for the BBC. On the film side, SISTER is teaming with acclaimed author and journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner to develop The Get based on Matt Shear’s GQ feature ‘The Orthodox Hit Squad’ and a Bee Gees biopic.
Tayarisha Poe is represented by ICM, Grandview and FKKS. and Lydia Millet is represented by Maria Massie at MMQ Lit and WME.
ABOUT SISTER
SISTER was co-founded by Elisabeth Murdoch, Stacey Snider and Jane Featherstone to develop, produce and invest in visionary creators. SISTER builds upon Featherstone’s Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning scripted indie, Sister Pictures, as a new independent global studio with offices in London and LA. It unites the expertise of the founders alongside a team of renowned creatives to make breakout stories across all forms of media. As well as producing hit shows including Chernobyl (Sky/HBO) and Giri/Haji (BBC/ Netflix), SISTER has made a series of bold investments in new creator-led businesses including Zando, an ambitious new publishing venture from Molly Stern, The Springhill Company, founded by LeBron James and Maverick Carter, Campside Media, a podcast studio, and AWA Studios, a comic book and digital media publisher.
ABOUT COMPLEMENTARY COLORS
Complementary Colors, a cultural production company, was founded by Jonah Disend to produce content that captures universal themes in unexpected ways. Complementary Colors has produced the upcoming feature Mayday from writer/director Karen Cinorre starring Grace Van Patten, Mia Goth and Juliette Lewis. They are a producer on the series adaptation of James McBride’s Deacon King Kong and have created the fantasy pop-culture site Cultural Fan Fiction www.culturalfanfiction.com.