May 2021

Synchronicity develops latest Helen Fitzgerald series Bloody Women

Synchronicity Films is to adapt Helen Fitzgerald’s 2009 novel, Bloody Women.

The production company has signed up Lorna Martin, the co-creator of Women on the Verge alongside Sharon Horgan, to adapt the novel into an eight-part, darkly comedic thriller. All3Media International is distributing as part of its first-look deal with Synchronicity.

Bloody Women tells the story of 33-year-old Cat Marsden, who on the morning of her wedding is taken to a police station and shown a severed penis. She tries not to laugh but she can’t help herself. On close inspection, she confirms that it almost certainly belongs to her ex, Johnny. She also confirms that she slept with him in the hours before his death, the days leading up to her wedding. What she can’t confirm is whether or not she’s responsible for mutilating and murdering him.

Synchronicity founder and creative director Claire Mundell said Bloody Women was a “gloriously playful” story with an “idiosyncratic but instantly loveable female lead.” FitzGerald added: “I am bowled over to have screenwriter Lorna Martin adapting, whose work is funny and dark and twisted and poignant — exactly my cup of tea.”

Martin continued: “It has been an absolute thrill escaping into the hideously dark and twisted world Helen created and adapting it with the fantastic team at Synchronicity… As well as the darkly comedic murder mystery in Bloody Women, what really attracted me to the project were the flawed and dysfunctional but also very human female characters at the heart of it. Worryingly, I found them very relatable.”

More information on the upcoming adaptation can be found on Deadline.