A24 and HBO developing a new Angel Heart series

A24 is adapting the 1987 novel Angel Heart into a TV series with Zac Efron in the lead. More on that below.  A24 is having a very busy year! Not only are they eyeing up a very big weekend at the box office with Backrooms and have set an October release date for Crystal Lake, ... A24 and HBO developing a new Angel Heart series

A24 is adapting the 1987 novel Angel Heart into a TV series with Zac Efron in the lead. More on that below. 

A24 is having a very busy year! Not only are they eyeing up a very big weekend at the box office with Backrooms and have set an October release date for Crystal Lake, their Friday The 13th prequel series, they’ve got another TV show in the works.

Deadline reports that the studio is adapting William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel Falling Angel into a series and have cast Zac Efron in the lead role. The development of the series is a collaboration between A24 and HBO, with Zach Baylin writing and executive producing the series. 

The novel was adapted in 1987, starring Robert DeNiro and Mickey Rourke. The film got a mixed reception as well as an X rating for a graphic sex scene, which was then cut down to get the rating down to the much more tolerable – and bankable – R rating. 

Here’s what Deadline has listed as the plot: “Based on William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel Falling Angel and the sequel Angel’s Inferno, the series will follow a down-and-out NYC paparazzi, who makes his living finding and photographing people who don’t want to be found. He is hired by a mysterious man to find a missing woman. But the deeper he digs to find her, the more it looks like a group of powerful elites, and maybe something supernatural, are covering up the disappearance.”

Jonathan van Tulleken, who directed several episodes of the excellent Shōgun, is set to direct multiple episodes of the new Angel Heart adaptation and will also executive produce the series. 

Efron has clearly found a home at A24. The actor worked with the studio on The Iron Claw and will next be seen in Jody Hill’s Famous, a dark comedy also starring Phoebe Dynevor.