EXCLUSIVE: His Dark Materials and The Eddy writer Jack Thorne has teamed up with Legendary Global on a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel A Tale of Two Cities.

Thorne will write and exec produce a “relevant” retelling of the book, which was first published in 1859, for the studio, which was established last year by Legendary and the former Starz CEO Chris Albrecht.

The series is inspired by Dickens’ original publication of the novel as weekly chapters in a newspaper, and set in London and Paris during the French Revolution. It tells the story of French doctor Manette, his 18-year long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met.

Thorne, who wrote the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play, has written Damien Chazelle’s Netflix music drama The Eddy, Radioactive, a feature film starring Rosamund Pike as Marie Curie for Amazon and Studiocanal and the Marc Munden-directed adaptation of The Secret Garden.

A Tale of Two Cities is his latest Dickens’ adaptation; the writer previously adapted A Christmas Carol, starring Rhys Ifans, as a play for The Old Vic.

It is the latest project for Legendary Global, which was unveiled in December. The company, which will focus on developing, financing and producing premium international scripted television and operates independently of Legendary TV, recently teamed up with Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter and Pose exec producer Sherry Marsh on Tokyo Underworld, a crime drama set in Japan.