Antonio Campos is onto his next (stair)case…
The 37-year-old half-Brazilian American director is set to helm the remake of The Staircase, one of the first true-crime documentaries to break out into mainstream culture when it was released in 2004.
Campos’ remake will be a drama limited series for HBO Max with Colin Firth playing Michael Peterson, the man convicted of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson.
There previously were rumors that Harrison Ford had been attached to the project.
The Staircase is written and executive-produced by Campos and Cohn, and Campos will direct six of the eight episodes of the show, which is produced by Annapurna Television and HBO Max.
The Staircase started out as a documentary from director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. It told the story of Michael Peterson, a crime novelist accused of killing his wife Kathleen after she is found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home, and the 16-year judicial battle that followed. De Lestrade was granted unusual access to the case immediately following Kathleen’s death in 2001 in Durham, NC. Her husband, Michael, a local public figure and successful novelist, quickly became the prime suspect and was convicted.
The original series aired on France’s Canal+ and BBC 4 in the UK as well as on Sundance Channel in the United States.
Lestrade returned to the case a few years later for a three-part follow-up to the case, which aired on Netflix.
“This has been a project I have been working on in one way or another since 2008,” says Campos. “It’s been a long and winding road, but well worth the wait to be able to find partners like HBO Max, Annapurna, co-showrunner Maggie Cohn and the incredible Colin Firth to dramatize such a complex true-life story.”
Campos previously directed the Rebecca Hall-fronted feature Christine.
