For a 'high six-figure' sum

Andrew Hunter Murray has signed a deal for the TV and film rights for his debut novel said to be in the ‘high six figures’.

His book, The Last Day,  is a science-based eco-thriller that takes place 40 years in the ‘terrifyingly plausible dystopian future’ after a solar catastrophe slows the planet’s rotation, putting one half in endless frozen night and the other under constant burning sun. The future of humanity lies in the hands of a scientist who has stumbled upon a secret that the government will go to any lengths to keep hidden.

Hollywood website Deadline reports that production house Stone Village Television has snapped up the rights.

Murray is a QI ‘elf’ and co-host of the programme’s spin-off podcast No Such Thing As A Fish, as well as being part of the Austentatious improv troupe.

The Last Day will be released on Cornerstone imprint Hutchinson next year. (Order here).

When the book was announced in January, publisher Selina Walker said: ‘This is a truly prescient, gripping, accomplished read that keeps you glued to the pages while making you think about the fragility of the world around us. 

‘It is particularly exciting to be publishing such an original and creative writer at the beginning of what we fully expect to be a long fiction career.’

Stone Village is a new company set up by producers Scott Steindorff and Dylan Russell, who previously worked together on the movies Chef and Gimme Shelter.

Published: 29 Jun 2019