Continually busy There is yet another project in the works for Elizabeth Banks. Based on Victoria Aveyard’s novel series, Banks will both direct and co-star in the Peacock series Red Queen. The plot takes place in “an alternate near-future America where democracy has been supplanted by a monarchy ruled with an iron fist over those without powers”
According to Deadline, Peacock has acquired the rights to the young adult fantasy book Red Queen, and Elizabeth Banks will both direct and “play a prominent supporting role” in the series. The script is being handled by Victoria Aveyard, the author of the book, and Beth Schwartz, a former Arrow showrunner. Together with Max Handelman, Banks will executive produce.
The first novel in a series, Red Queen, was released in 2015 and takes place in a super-powered monarchy-ruled America in an alternate future. Here is a summary:
Mare Barrow’s world is divided by blood those with common, Red blood serve the Silver-blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.
The king makes her seem to be a lost Silver princess and marries her to one of his own sons in order to conceal this absurdity. Mare risks everything and uses her new position to aid the Scarlet Guard in putting down a burgeoning Red insurrection as she becomes more and more sucked into the Silver world, despite her emotions pulling her in an impossibly different path.
At the risky game she plays, betrayal is the only thing that can be assured without putting her life in peril.
The sequels Glass Sword, King’s Cage, and War Storm came after Red Queen. It’s simple to imagine Peacock sticking with this and creating Game of Thrones-style adaptations of the other books for upcoming seasons. Gennifer Hutchison, the author of Better Call Saul, was once tapped by Universal to pen a full film adaptation of Red Queen, with Elizabeth Banks potentially attached to helm the project. The project is currently streaming. Banks is currently juggling a number of projects. She is expected to helm the Universal Pictures films Cocaine Bear and Invisible Woman, both of which are based on true stories of a bear who consumed cocaine.
