Tennant & Cumberbatch Will Both Play Alexander Litvinenko In New Drama Series

It is a truth universally acknowledged that no one in Hollywood has an original idea, and if they do, someone next door has it five minutes later. This is how multiplexes end up with the "Twin Films" phenomenon, from dueling Winston Churchill films Darkest Hour and Churchill, to 1998 blockbusters Deep Impact and Armageddon, to the Murdoch-inspired Succession and Press. The latest will be a pair of biopic series with award season potential, telling the story of British-naturalised Russian defector Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko, who was allegedly killed by radiation poisoning the Russian government.

Deadline initially announced the first project in September 2021, a prestige TV series from the U.K.'s ITV and Nordic Entertainment Group's streaming service Viaplay from the man behind Netflix French hit Lupin, George Kay. Titled Litvinenko, the four-part series starring David Tennant focuses more on the Scotland Yard officers "who worked for ten years to prove who was responsible, in one of the most complex and dangerous investigations in the history of the Metropolitan Police." Margarita Levieva (The Deuce) co-stars as Litvinenko's widow Marina, which should give fans an idea of the series' angle.

Here's the series logline: "The drama will relate how in November 2006, two police officers were called to University College Hospital in London to interview a patient in declining health. The patient was Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who claimed to have been poisoned on the direct orders of Vladimir Putin."