Ridley Scott's company Scott Free London has snapped up the film rights to Anne de Courcy's best-selling book THE FISHING FLEET after fierce competition from rival film and TV companies.
De Courcy's book is a vivid and compelling social history of husband-hunting in the Raj, and describes the exploits of young British women sent by the boatload to India to find love and marriage.
Scott Free London will develop the book as a theatrical release feature film, with Liza Marshall producing. Anne will act as development consultant.
The deal was negotiated by Conrad Williams for Blake Friedmann Literary Agency and Carlo Dusi for Scott Free London.
'Anne de Courcy brilliantly evokes the era…vivid descriptions of tiger hunts, tea dances to the agonies of prickly heat... The women who married into the Raj were true adventurers. De Courcy's book restores their proper reputation: as brave, sometimes batty, irredeemably British heroines' - Daily Mail
'A fascinating and evocatively told history…of the women who risked all for a husband.' - Financial Times.