EXCLUSIVE: Patrick Radden Keefe’s The Snakehead, a book described as a mix between The Godfather and Chinatown, could be heading to the small screen after A24 won the rights.
The company, which is behind series such as Hulu’s Ramy and Netflix’s Mo, beat out a number of rival production houses to score the rights in a bidding war. We hear that there were nine bidders for the book, which was published in 2010.
The Snakehead investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal, a middle-aged woman from New York’s Chinatown who manages a multi-million dollar business smuggling people and providing safe passage to America. The Snakehead is a crime story and an exploration of the ironies of immigration in America.
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The book tells the story of charismatic middle-aged grandmother Sister Ping who runs her complex empire from a tiny noodle shop in New York’s Chinatown. Keefe recounts the decade-long FBI investigation that eventually brought her down. He follows an often incompetent and sometimes corrupt INS as it pursues desperate immigrants risking everything to come to America, and along the way, he paints a portrait of a generation of illegal immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them.
Radden Keefe will create and exec produce. He is the author of books including Say Nothing, the story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and Empire of Pain, which tells the history of the Sackler dynasty, which founded opioid producer Purdue Pharma. A TV adaptation of Say Nothing is set to go into production this spring as a limited series for FX. He is also exec producing upcoming Netflix limited series Painkiller, directed by Peter Berg and produced by Eric Newman.
It is the latest television project for A24, which is known for feature films such as The Florida Project and Everything Everywhere All At Once. It joins upcoming series such as HBO’s The Weeknd-fronted drama The Idol, Netflix’s Steven Yeun and Ali Wong-fronted Beef and Peacock’s Friday The 13th series Crystal Lake.
Radden Keefe is represented by Anna DeRoy at WME for dramatic rights, Jason Burns at UTA for screenwriting, and attorney Andy Galker at Jackoway Austen.
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