Exclusive: Media Res, the company behind Apple’s The Morning Show, has paid 7-figures to secure rights to Adrian McKinty’s global bestselling novel The Chain. The plan is to turn the thriller into a TV series.

Writer/producer Shane Salerno (Avatar: The Way of Water) will be executive producer along with Media Res’ Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer. McKinty will be a Co-ep. Media Res and Salerno will next enlist a showrunner and actress to play the lead role and shop that package.

The Chain is a conspiracy thriller page-turner about an ordinary mother facing every parent’s worst nightmare: Her child is taken on her way to school. To get her back, the people behind the kidnapping plot – they call themselves The Chain – demand she do the unimaginable in exchange. A wicked, delirious puzzle piece that places audiences in the protagonist’s heart-pounding dilemma, The Chain is an...