Steven Moffat to transform The Time Traveler’s Wife into a series for HBO

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

HBO has given a straight-to-series order to a new adaption of Audrey NIffenegger's "The Time Traveler's Wife" which will be written by Doctor Who and Sherlock show-runner Steven Moffat. Described as an intricate and magical love story, "The Time Traveler's Wife"  follows Henry DeTamble, "a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love."

The novel was previously adapted into a feature film starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams back in 2009, but the series will undoubtedly be a very different beast. In a statement, Steven Moffat said:

I read Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife many years ago, and I fell in love with it. In fact, I wrote a Doctor Who episode called ‘The Girl In The Fireplace’ as a direct response to it. When, in her next novel, Audrey had a character watching that very episode, I realized she was probably on to me. All these years later, the chance to adapt the novel itself, is a dream come true. The brave new world of long form television is now ready for this kind of depth and complexity. It’s a story of happy ever after – but not necessarily in that order.

"We are thrilled to be partnering with Steven Moffat, Hartswood and WBTV on The Time Traveler’s Wife," HBO president of programming Casey Bloys said. "Steven’s passion is evident in every project he’s written and we are certain that his love and respect for this mesmerizing and textured novel will make it a quintessential HBO series." Hartswood Films, who will be producing along with Warner Bros. Television, added, "HBO is the perfect home to tell this incredible story with all the scale and space it needs, and we’re delighted to be working with Warner Bros to bring Steven’s thrilling vision of the novel to life." HBO has landed a number of high-profile projects with major creators over the past year, including J.J. Abrams' Demimonde, Damon Lindelof's Watchmen, and Joss Whedon's The Nevers.