Freddie Highmore to play Edgar Allan Poe in TV series Augustine & Edgar
A few years ago, we got two different movies that involved a young Edgar Allan Poe investigating mysteries during his time at the Military Academy at West Point, Raven’s Hollow and The Pale Blue Eye. Now, it sounds like a young Poe will be investigating more mysteries soon, as Variety reports that Freddie Highmore – who played Norman Bates in five seasons of the TV series Bates Motel and also starred in seven seasons of The Good Doctor – is in negotiations to star as a “reimagined” Edgar Allan Poe in the prestige detective period series Augustine & Edgar, which is set in Paris during the tumultuous mid-19th century.
Gaumont is producing the series for French network TF1. This show will mark Highmore’s French-language acting debut, and Variety notes that he is “fluent in French and has said in several interviews over the last 10 years that he’d love to be offered a part in French.” Highmore is likely to be joined in the cast by Audrey Fleurot, star of TF1’s hit series HPI, as Augustine.
Co-producing with Gaumont are Maxime Chattam and Patrick Renault of Atanor Content, and Elizabeth Kesses at EJK Productions, who began developing the project several years ago. Renault will be the showrunner on the series, which is also being written by Sophie Dab. Renault previously created the Peacock show Last Light and was the head writer on Harlan Coben’s No Second Chance.
Plot details are being kept secret, but it is known that Augustine & Edgar will tell a fictional story that follows Poe as he travels to Paris and encounters Augustine, a quick-witted female detective inspired by the character of Auguste Dupin, the protagonist of three tales created by Poe. Filming is expected to begin toward the end of 2026, and a TF1 is looking to be joined by a streaming service that would serve as co-financier. The streamer is probably going to be Netflix, since they have an existing partnership with TF1.
In addition to the “young Poe working on mysteries” films mentioned above, we also got the 2012 crime thriller The Raven, in which an older Poe dealt with a serial killer case, and the 2007 Masters of Horror episode The Black Cat, which imagined how Poe might have been inspired to write his 1843 short story of the same name.
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