The BBC and See-Saw Films have hired Andrew Haigh to serve as the director and screenwriter of The North Water. In the past, this filmmaker has worked on several projects including Weekend (2011), 45 Years (2015), and Lean on Pete (2017).
According to Variety, the story for this six-part limited series will be based on Ian McGuire’s novel. Henry Holt published the United States edition of the book in March 2016.
Here’s more from IndieWire: “McGuire’s lauded novel, which was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, follows a seemingly ill-fated nineteenth-century whaling expedition in which characters grow to fear a monster among their own ranks, not just the terrors of the seas they travel. The story focuses on harpooner Henry Drax and first-timer Patrick Sumner, a pair of mismatched men who eventually come to startling blows in a tale that sounds, quite frankly, relentlessly unnerving.” (via The Hollywood Reporter)