{"id":600335,"date":"2026-04-22T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/600335\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T21:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:25:09","slug":"benedict-cumberbatch-to-star-in-produce-white-smoke-tv-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/600335\/","title":{"rendered":"Benedict Cumberbatch To Star In & Produce ‘White Smoke’ TV Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: A24<\/a> UK looks to have emerged victorious among more than a dozen suitors to option rights to Nick Brucker\u2019s upcoming novel White Smoke<\/a>, with plans to adapt it into a TV series. A24 will produce alongside Oscar\u00a0nominee Benedict Cumberbatch<\/a> and his SunnyMarch production company. Cumberbatch is also attached to star.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhite Smoke, a heist novel to be published in 2027, is set among a group of duplicitous con men and thieves determined to steal the Vatican\u2019s most remarkable treasures\u00a0during a papal conclave.<\/p>\n

\n\tSources say that even though the book won\u2019t hit shelves till next year, the town was buzzing for the property, with various suitors chasing for both film and TV. Since the book is the first in a series, the sellers felt the TV route made more sense, and A24 and SunnyMarch\u2019s offer was just too good to pass up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNick Brucker is the pseudonym of speculative fiction writer Nicholas Binge,\u00a0whose\u00a0latest novel\u00a0Dissolution was hailed as one of the best books of 2025 by the New York Times; it is being adapted at Sony Pictures with Eric Heisserer penning the screenplay and Chronology and Temple Hill co-producing. The White Smoke book has sold in 23 international territories to date.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Cumberbatch, this marks his return to TV following his turn in the Netflix limited series Eric, which bowed last spring. SunnyMarch also co-produced the Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning 2018 limited series Patrick Melrose,\u00a0starring Cumberbatch, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Hugo Weaving; and an adaptation of Ian McEwan\u2019s\u00a0Child In Time\u00a0for BBC One.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the film side, recent productions have included Mahalia Belo\u2019s debut feature The End We Start From starring Jodie Comer, Katherine Waterston, Mark Strong and Joel Fry; the Golden Globe-winning Kevin Macdonald film The Mauritanian starring Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim, Cumberbatch and Shailene Woodley; Will Sharpe\u2019s period piece The Electrical Life of Louis Wain starring Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Toby Jones and Andrea Riseborough; and The Courier, a Cold War espionage drama directed by Dominic Cooke starring Cumberbatch, Rachel Brosnahan, Merab Ninidze and Jessie Buckley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUTA negotiated the White Smoke deal on behalf of Binge and the filmmakers. Cumberbatch is represented by UTA,\u00a0Conway van Gelder Grant, and Sloane Offer Weber Dern. Binge is represented by UTA and Alexander Cochran at Greyhound Literary.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: A24 UK looks to have emerged victorious among more than a dozen suitors to option rights to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[17979,5433,236,88,66141],"class_list":{"0":"post-600335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-a24","9":"tag-benedict-cumberbatch","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-white-smoke"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}