Endemol Shine India Acquires Rights To ‘Lioness: The Last Queen’ By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Endemol Shine India has acquired the rights to Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s unreleased book Lioness: The Last Queen.
Indian author Divakaruni’s previous books include The Mistress Of Spices, Palace Of Illusions and One Amazing Thing, all of which have been optioned or adapted for screen.
Lioness is a historical novel based on the life of a beautiful, charismatic and hotheaded Indian Queen. Mumbai-based book to screen company The Story Ink has put the deal together and will also be involved as one of the producers.
Abhishek Rege, CEO, Endemol Shine India, said, “Endemol Shine India is pleased to collaborate with an acclaimed author such as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The stories she tells and the characters she etches are as inspiring as they are intriguing. With ‘Lioness’ she brings alive a hero whose story is largely unknown. Authentic, motivational, patriotic yet tragic, we can’t wait to bring alive the story of this legendary queen.”
Said author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, “Lioness: The Last Queen is a truthful and complex tale of an amazing woman with great qualities and fatal flaws. Her indomitable spirit and the determination with which she continued fighting the British with whatever weapons she had available to her is inspiring to us even today. I am thrilled to collaborate with Endemol Shine India and Sidharth to bring to screen, this fascinating story of a queen who fought against the tyranny of the British and stood tall against the insidious cultural colonization of the time. I hope that this story is an apt ode to this lioness of India!”
Among Divakaruni’s book to screen adaptations to date have been 2005 movie The Mistress Of Spices, which was co-scripted by Gurinder Chadha and starred Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott.
Via Deadline Hollywood
