First Law author Joe Abercrombie heavily “involved” in Best Served Cold movie

From The Witcher to The Wheel of Time, a lot of studios have tried to make their own epic fantasy TV shows in the wake of the success of Game of Thrones. But one notable fantasy author whose work has yet to make the leap to the screen is Joe Abercrombie, author of The First Law books. But that’s about to change: earlier this year, the news broke that Deadpool director Tim Miller is helming a film based on Abercrombie’s novel Best Served Cold, with Rebecca Ferguson (Dune, Silo) set to star in the lead role of mercenary Monza Murcatto.

Speaking with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff and Steven Weintraub, Miller recently gave fans the biggest update yet about Best Served Cold. “Best Served Cold is the one that’s out there that you know of,” Miller said when asked what projects he’s currently working on. “That’s the one I’m most excited about, and that’s the movie that I hope to be making very soon.”

Before Best Served Cold, the plan was to make a trilogy of First Law movies

Best Served Cold is an interesting choice for a first movie based on Abercrombie’s work. The First Law is a book trilogy set in a grimdark fantasy world. Best Served Cold is one of three standalone novels that Abercrombie published afterward. While those books each have ties to the original trilogy, they stand well enough on their own. Any would make make for a good entryway into The First Law universe.

It took Miller and Abercrombie a while to arrive at that conclusion, though. The director revealed that originally, the plan was to start with a trilogy of First Law movies:

"This is not something…you know directors kind of attach to things and detach, but I’ve been working on this for a long time. Probably 12 years now…at least, not this particular one but working with Joe [Abercrombie]. We tried to do The First Law as a series, and then we switched…I said what if we did a trilogy of films and I’ll cross shoot them…and it’ll fucking kill me but it’ll be great. And we could release three movies back-to-back. Why wouldn’t you want to spend $300 million on that, come on? And then we landed with Best Served Cold as a really great introduction to the world of The First Law."

Best Served Cold is a classic revenge story, peppered with Abercrombie’s signature dark humor and cynicism. It follows Monza Murcatto, a famed mercenary who is double crossed and then goes on a bloody path of retribution. “It’s a great world. It’s Kill Bill meets Game of Thrones is my quick pitch,” Miller explained. “Joe’s style of writing, it’s called ‘grimdark,’ but it really has a lot of sense of humor and humanity to it that makes it sort of different from most of what you’ve seen before.”

Joe Abercrombie is “involved in everything” for Best Served Cold

Miller also revealed that Joe Abercrombie wrote the script for the Best Served Cold movie. That bodes really well for the film, since Abercrombie’s voice is so distinctive. Miller said Abercrombie is “involved in everything” and that they talk “every day.”

Miller tries pretty hard to convince Nemiroff and Weintraub to check out The First Law audiobooks, which I found funny as well as encouraging. It’s very clear he has a lot of passion for this project, which is exactly the sort of energy fans want behind an adaptation of such a beloved series.

"There’s 10 books, and if you haven’t read them I highly recommend the Audible books because the gentleman who reads them, Stephen Pacey, is amazing. He’s also the narrator in “The Drowned Giant,” the Love, Death & Robots story I did in season 3.I’ve listened to all [10] of those books, I shit you not, 11, 12 times through the whole series. It’s a little pathetic. I’m a huge fan."

Rebecca Ferguson will (probably) play Monza Murcatto

One last point of interest: up until now, the word on the street was that Rebecca Ferguson was “in talks” to play Monza Murcatto, the lead role in Best Served Cold. But Miller speaks as if her casting is all but assured. “She was so amazing in [Dune], and I think…she’s amazing in everything she does and she’s a wonderful person as I get to know her more. But that’s the thing that’s next on the agenda, is Best Served Cold,” he said.

Best Served Cold hasn’t started filming yet, but we’ll have our ear to the ground for more updates.

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h/t Collider