The Beeb is keen to lock down the the new series for broadcast…

David Tennant is set to play Phileas Fogg in a television series adaptation of the the Jules Verne classic adventure novel Around the World in Eighty Days, and the BBC has confirmed that it will be the broadcaster that airs it when it’s ready for the small screen. Slim Film + Television and Federation Entertainment are behind the new 8-part project.

Around the World in Eighty Days, first published as Le Tour du Monde en 80 Jours in 1873, features the adventures of English gentleman Phileas Fogg and his French butler Passepartout as they attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager.

“This is such an exciting project”, said the BBC’s Head of Programme Acquisition Sue Deeks. “There is an amazing team both in front and behind the camera and we cannot wait to see their ambitious interpretation of this classic novel for a new generation.”

Alongside Tennant, Ibrahim Koma (Je Suis Daddy) will be Passepartout, “an irrepressible chancer who falls into the role of Fogg’s ‘valet’, little knowing it will change his life forever” and Leonie Benesch (The Crown) will play Abigail Fix, “the young journalist determined to make her mark in a man’s world and emerge from the long shadow of her British establishment father.”

The adaptation has been written by Ashley Pharoah and Caleb Ranson. Steve Barron and Charles Beeson will direct it.

Filming is set to begin in the new year.

More soon.