Joel Wilson, executive producer at Eleven Film, says the long route to a Lord of the Flies television adaptation was the only project he would call hard work without embarrassment. Speaking on a panel at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, where the four-part series is screening this weekend, Wilson described production as physically tough and psychologically rigorous—and, at the same time, the most joyful creative process of his career.
The series, adapted by Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne, premiered on the BBC in the UK in February and reached Netflix in the US in May. It has since earned two Emmy nominations.
The rights were never clearly sold
Wilson told the Thessaloniki audience that he first approached William Golding’s estate about television rights many years ago, when he had little in the way of credits. The estate, he recalled, politely asked him to come back later. He kept returning. His leverage only grew after Eleven Film produced Sex Education.
The opening was contractual. Warner Bros. held the rights and had tried to remake the novel several times without success, Wilson explained. But the original agreement left genuine ambiguity over whether the studio owned film and television rights or only film rights—in part because television adaptation was not contemplated when the contract was written. Wilson said the television rights therefore stayed with the Golding family.
Talent turned the pitch into a yes
The producer called the next step one of the few serendipitous moments in his life. Wilson said Thorne, with whom he had worked before, made the project conditional on the rights: if Wilson could secure them, Thorne would adapt the book. With Thorne attached, momentum followed fast.
The BBC pitch needed no script. Wilson said the team simply told the broadcaster that Thorne wanted to make Lord of the Flies and asked if it was in. The response came straight away. The vision was clear enough for a greenlight before a single page was written.
What screen businesses can reuse
For producers, platform executives and media planners tracking how premium IP gets packaged, Wilson’s account is a compact case study. Rights that look unavailable are often simply unexamined. The sequence worth copying:
- Re-read legacy contracts for format gaps—film rights and television rights are separate assets.
- Build a track record before chasing prestige titles; credibility changes the estate conversation.
- Attach a writer with heat before pitching; a known name can replace a full pitch deck.
- Keep rights-holder relationships warm; the family’s eventual sign-off becomes the trust signal.
At ScreenStat, we read this less as a production anecdote than as a rights-market lesson. The difference between a stalled literary property and a greenlit series was not luck alone; it was due diligence on a legacy contract, a patient relationship, and a talent attachment that gave the buyer an easy yes. That formula applies beyond highbrow adaptations—it is the same logic that moves older film libraries into series and revived formats across streaming.
Marc Munden directed the adaptation, with Hans Zimmer providing the music. Wilson said the team’s job was to protect the vision Thorne and Munden brought, one that stayed close to the original novel. He added that Judy Golding, the author’s daughter, was delighted with the result—an important outcome, he said, because the book was precious to her.
The Thessaloniki Film Festival runs through November 15.
Source: Deadline
