Compact Pictures options The Pharmacist
Details
Editor
| 12 May 2023
In what is seen as a coup for the Glasgow-based emerging TV and film indie founded by John McKay, Compact Pictures has just optioned The Pharmacist for development.
ThePharmacist RachelleAtalla 12May2023
Based on the acclaimed debut novel written by Scots-Egyptian novelist Rachelle Atalla, The Pharmacist is a female-led, psychological story about bunker-dwelling survivors in a post-nuclear world. Wolfe is the bunker’s pharmacist, doling out medicine under the watchful eye of an increasingly erratic and paranoid leader. When the leader starts to ask things of her, favours she can hardly say no to, it seems her luck is running out. Forming unlikely alliances, she is forced to navigate the powder keg of life underground where one misstep will light the fuse. The walls that keep her safe also have her trapped.

Atalla is a graduate of Chris Young’s renowned Skye Film programme and Write4Film. Her second novel, Thirsty Animals, has just been published by Hodder and Stoughton to critical acclaim.

Commenting on the new development she said: “I am delighted to be working with John, Laura and the team at Compact to bring my first novel to the screen. Even though we are just getting started, they have an incredible vision for my work and it’s an exciting prospect for me to turn the book into a screenplay and then see it come alive on screen. And it’s particularly satisfying to be doing all of this out of Scotland.”

McKay added: “The Pharmacist is a stand-out novel and will make an atmospheric, claustrophobic adaptation – in the lo-fi, speculative vein of Children of Men, but with a strong female perspective. We are thrilled to be working directly with Rachelle; she is a charismatic, original and dynamic storytelling voice with striking and timely things to say about women, their bodies and the politics of control. Even though it’s early days, we have high hopes for this project: the story is exceptionally strong, and it readily opens itself to diverse casting and distinctive visual styling.”

The Compact Pictures slate of projects in development also includes The Hum an eight-part, sophisticated, high-concept thriller created by writer James Mavor (Reichenbacj Falls) and A Beginners’ Guide to Ruling the Galaxy, a teen/YA comedy series written by David Solomons (5 Children and It). Compact Pictures has also just completed its first feature film, Aylin Tezel’s Falling Into Place.

Other current feature projects in development include James Ley’s sparkling gay romcom, Lovesong to Lavender Menace, which has just been selected for Inside Out 2023, the finance forum in Toronto, and Spyglass, an original family action feature also from YA author David Solomons (Not Another Happy Ending).