Charles King’s Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah is headed to the big screen, Deadline reports.
King’s book, published last year by Doubleday, is the story of the famous oratorio by composer George Frideric Handel, which was first performed in 1742 and has since become a Christmastime staple. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a swiftly moving, constantly engaging portrait of a beloved masterpiece.”
In an interview with Kirkus, King said of his book, “It’s a story, I think, about the way in which our own legacies are things not of our own making. The things that live on after us are subject to forces far larger than ourselves.”
Walden Media is developing the film adaptation of the book, which will be written by Christopher Hampton, whose previous screenwriting credits include Dangerous Liaisons, The Quiet American, Atonement, A Dangerous Method, and The Father. Hampton’s work on Dangerous Liaisons and The Father (with Florian Zeller) earned him Academy Awards for best adapted screenplay.
Benjamin Tappan, the president of film and television for Walden Media, told Deadline, “Handel’s journey through immense struggle and personal transformation to create one of the most beloved and enduring pieces of music is an epic befitting the movie screen, and we could think of no better writer than Christopher Hampton to adapt Charles King’s book with the depth, beauty, and scale it deserves.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
