LOS ANGELES, CA – December 17, 2019 – Village Roadshow Entertainment Group has made a pre-emptive acquisition of the rights to adapt Shamim Sarif’s explosive YA thriller, THE ATHENA PROTOCOL, into a television series. Sarif will write the pilot and is attached to direct on the project. Along with her producing partner, Hanan Kattan, she will executive produce alongside Village Roadshow.
THE ATHENA PROTOCOL features six female protagonists, led by Jessie, a hot-headed young agent at Athena, a top secret, socially-conscious vigilante organization focused on helping women and children worldwide. When Jessie breaks protocol and assassinates a target, she’s ousted from Athena just as her teammates set out to take down a human trafficker in Belgrade. Going rogue in order to prove herself, Jessie finds there’s no-one to watch her back as she gets closer to the horrifying truth behind the mission. The book was snapped up by HarperCollins and published in October 2019 to rave reviews, with a sequel, THE SHADOW MISSION, coming in October 2020.
Sarif isan award-winning novelist, screenwriter and director for film and TV, whose three features as writer/director, all produced by Kattan, have won 47 international awards. She is represented by Adam Peck of Synchronicity Management, lawyer Jeffrey Finkelstein of Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano and Emily Hayward-Whitlock at The Artists Partnership. Book rights are handled by Sophie Hicks in London.