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Fresh off the success of his Crave television adaptation of Heated Rivalry, Jacob Tierney is taking on another project based on Canadian literary gold.
Tierney will write, direct and executive produce Alexander, a new series adapted from Vancouver author Annabel Lyon’s 2009 novel The Golden Mean, Netflix announced Thursday.
Alexander takes place in Greece in fourth-century BC, and follows what happens when Aristotle becomes the tutor of the rebellious and volatile teenage prince, Alexander the Great.
The Golden Mean was an international bestseller and took off on the Canadian literary awards circuit, earning nominations for the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, and winning the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
“I fell in love with Annabel Lyon’s book The Golden Mean years ago and have been dreaming of telling this story ever since,” said Tierney in statement.
In fact, he first reached out to her about adapting the novel in 2014, five years after the book came out, Lyon told CBC Books in a email.
“He’s never given up on the project,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me, and how grateful I am.”
A familiar story
For Heated Rivalry fans, this story might sound familiar.
It was Tierney’s love of Nova Scotia author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers hockey romance series that led him to adapting the second novel, Heated Rivalry, into a television show of the same name.
Heated Rivalry debuted in November on Crave, and is its most successful original series to date — making Tierney one of the hottest names in TV production.
“Tierney is one of the most exciting, in-demand creative voices working today, and we are thrilled to work with him on Alexander,” said Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of scripted for U.S. and Canadian series, in a statement.
“This series reimagines the classic power struggle between mentor and protégé with a raw, modern energy that feels both epic and incredibly intimate.”
Brendan Brady, who co-produced Heated Rivalry, will also serve as an executive producer on Alexander, as will Michael Costigan and Jason Bateman of Aggregate Films.
Lyon, who will have a consulting role on the project, says that after watching Tierney’s previous work, she thinks he’s “exactly the right person” to adapt her novel.
“I was especially struck, in Heated Rivalry, by that combination of innocence and arrogance and pride and shame and competitiveness and obligation in the young male leads, that spoke to me of Alexander.”
She said it was significant to her to have the book adapted 17 years after it was first published.
“The world is both very different and very reminiscent of 17 years ago and also 2,000 years ago,” she said.
“Ambition, greed, war, love — these things are always with us, and I really hope that the adaptation will speak both to the distant past and to the moment we’re in now. “
