The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Mockingjay - Part 1, Mockingjay - Part 2) is working on a TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novel Neverwhere. Deadline reports that Lawrence will helm the adaptation, as well as executive-produce.

Neverwhere actually started life as a miniseries (before subsequently becoming a novel) that aired in 1996 on the BBC in the UK, and on A&E in the U.S. A certain Peter Capaldi appeared on the series Gaiman co-created with Lenny Henry as the Angel Islington. It was most recently adapted has a successful BBC radio-drama that boasted a stellar voice cast that included James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, Christopher Lee, Benedict Cumberbatch, Anthony Head, David Harewood and Sophie Okonedo.

In urban fantasy Neverwhere, when Richard Mayhew encounters an injured girl named Door on the street one night, he decides to help her despite his fiancée’s protests. Upon doing so he ceases to exist on Earth and becomes real only to the denizens of “London Below,” whose inhabitants are generally invisible and non-existent to the people of “London Above.” He loses his house, his job and nearly his mind as he travels London Below in an attempt to make sense out of it all, find a way back and help Door survive as she is hunted down by hired assassins.

It being early days, there's no news as to where Neverwhere will land yet, but I'm really hoping the series finds a good home like Gaiman's American Gods, which was picked up to series at Starz under Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Hannibal) a few months back.

Are you excited for a new take on Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere? Do you think Francis Lawrence is the right man to take us to "London Below" once more?

(via Deadline)