BBC America‘s Dirk Gently series, based on the books by Douglas Adams, has today cast Elijah Wood (Cooties, Wilfred) in a leading role. Wood will play Todd on the show, which is adapted for television by Max Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra). Eight 60-minute episodes of the Dirk Gently series are being prepared to premiere this fall.
The Dirk Gently series offers a comedic thriller that follows the bizarre adventures of eccentric “holistic” detective Dirk Gently and his reluctant assistant Todd, 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.”
The Dirk Gently series is a co-production of AMC Studios, IDEATE MEDIA and IDW Entertainment with Circle of Confusion producing. In addition to Max Landis, executive producers on the show include Ted Adams and David Ozer for IDW; David Alpert and Rick Jacobs for Circle of Confusion and Zainir Aminullah and Arvind Ethan David for IDEATE MEDIA.
