Lord of the Rings and Wilfred star Elijah Wood will star in the comedic thriller Dirk Gently set up at BBC America. The series comes from Max Landis, the screenwriter of Chronicle and Victor Frankenstein, and is expected to premiere this fall. Landis is adapting Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently novels and will executive produce along with Ted Adams, David Ozer, David Alpert, Rick Jacobs, Zainir Aminullah, and Arvind Ethan David. The eight episode hour-long series is a co-production of AMC Studios, IDEATE MEDIA and IDW Entertainment.
Wood’s credits also include Cooties, Maniac, Happy Feet, 9, Bobby, Everything is Illuminated, Sin City, Green Street Hooligans, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The Dirk Gently Plot: Dirk Gently is a comedic thriller that follows the bizarre adventures of eccentric “holistic” detective Dirk Gently and his reluctant assistant Todd (Elijah Wood), as they wend their way through one big, seemingly insane mystery a season, crossing unlikely paths with a bevy of wild and sometimes dangerous characters, each episode landing them a few random steps closer to uncovering the truth.
He’s not a sidekick. Todd’s just flat out better than Dirk at a lot of things. He always attempts to solve matters with the fewest steps possible; despite being a compassionate, sweet, smarter-than-average man with biting wit, Todd often finds himself at the intersection of morally gray crossroads. Thus, his bad habits of lying and stealing have dire consequences that he can’t put off forever, even though he tries. Todd’s not a bad person. He’s not a good person yet, either, but he’ll get there.
As Todd describes himself to Dirk Gently: “I am not your Watson, asshole. I am not available for side-kicking on something I am not involved with. I am my own messed up person with my own messed up problems.”
