Mandalay Television has optioned the five books within Raven Kennedy’s Plated Prisoner series, with the intent to develop it as a television show.
According to Deadline, Mandalay—which has former Sony Pictures CEO Peter Guber at the helm—has picked up the rights, with Mandalay Television Development Executive Vanessa Johnston leading the effort.
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Gild
The Plated Prisoner books—Gild, Glint, Gleam, Glow, and Gold—are a riff on the story of King Midas. The series centers around Auren, a 25-year-old woman who King Midas has touched. Because of this, she is completely gold except for the whites of her eyes and her teeth. Midas keeps her in a gilded cage after she gave him her heart (literally?), and her life is upended when the one person she trusts betrays her, and she finds herself having to face the fact that the King Midas she knows might be a farce.
Kennedy published the first book in October 2020 and the series has been a huge TikTok and Instagram hit, with over 50 million hashtag views on TikTok alone. The first four books are already out, with the fifth one, Gold, set to be released in June 2023.
“The story of King Midas and his golden touch is well known and well-loved,” Johnston said in a statement to Deadline. “This is a retelling of a completely transformed tale, one that dives deep beneath the myth and produces a heartbreaking, and inspirational saga. The world the author has created has captured the imaginations of millions of people and we are excited to be adapting the rich and fantastical world that Raven Kennedy has so vividly created.”
This deal is only an option, so there are still a lot of steps the project has to go through for it to become a show we can watch with our eyeballs. An option could also mean that the project never makes it to the small screen at all, so we’ll have to see if we get any more news down the line about how this project is progressing.
