
‘The Alienist’ Should Please ‘Penny Dreadful’ and ‘Hannibal’ Fans
Posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2018 by Chris Evangelista
When The Alienist was first published in 1994, author Caleb Carr said, “I was always aware that if done correctly, this could end up being a great movie.” Well, we’ll never know if a great movie could’ve been made from this material, and not for lack of trying. Paramount Pictures bought the movie rights before publication in 1993, but behind-the-scenes squabbles about budget and scripts kept The Alienist from the big screen for more than two decades.
Now Carr’s serial killer novel finds new life as a TNT TV series, with True Detective season 1 director Cary Fukunaga serving as producer and Black Mirror director Jakob Verbruggen at the helm. The verdict, after all that delay, is this: perhaps it would’ve made a better movie than TV show.