Casino Royale director Martin Campbell to helm new TV drama Coup

Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Green Lantern) has signed on to executive produce and direct and a new television drama for ABC called Coup. According to Deadline, the show has been written by Chris Black (co-executive producer of Mad Men) will centre on a young American man whose wife is taken hostage in an overseas coup, and who must join forces with a dangerous mercenary to get her back.

Casino Royale director Campbell is a veteran of television series, having helmed 80s classics such as The Professionals, which starred Gordon Jackson, Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins as CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5) agents taking down bad guys. He also directed the television series Edge of Darkness, which focused on the mysterious death of a young girl that leads her father on a journey to uncover corruption and hunt down her killer. Edge of Darkness also received a big screen Hollywood remake starring Mel Gibson and Ray Winstone, which Campbell also directed.

More recently, Campbell has agreed to direct the reboot of cult television sci-fi Blake's 7; created by Terry Nation, the original series starred Michael Keating and Paul Darrow and centered on a group of renegades traveling through space as they try to undermine the totalitarian Terran Federation.