Deadline reports that HBO has acquired the U.S. and Canadian rights to a BBC One crime series based on the works of “Robert Galbraith”—a.k.a. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. The series stars War & Peace and The Musketeers lead Tom Burke as Rowling’s war-wounded P.I. character, Cormoran Strike. The first Strike book, The Cuckoo’s Calling, was released in 2013; a few months later, Rowling was outed as the author, leading sales of the book to explode.
This is actually the second time HBO has gotten involved in Rowling’s adult fiction: last year, the premium cable network co-produced an adaptation of The Casual Vacancy—co-starring retired Dumbledore Michael Gambon—with the BBC. Now, the two networks are partnering up again, with HBO set to air the Strike adaptation—which will come in the form of three separate, two-or-three-hour event series, one for each book—which begins filming this fall.
Meanwhile, Rowling is hard at work on writing more screenplays for her Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. She’s also reportedly working on a fourth Cormoran Strike book, scheduled for release next year.