HBO is developing a new version of The Birds, with Succession's Sarah Snook set to star and The Leftovers writer Tom Spezialy attached. The project draws on Daphne du Maurier's 1952 short story and Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film, and it had been in development for more than a year before landing at HBO.
According to Deadline's official synopsis, Snook plays Myra Massey, a traveling judge who returns to her childhood hometown in Alaska for a presumptive death hearing. She expects a routine case, but after being confronted with the dead body of a childhood friend, she begins investigating the mysterious death. The synopsis says it soon becomes clear that a killer is on the loose.
The story takes another turn when nature turns on the town. A wave of deadly bird attacks begins, and the attacks appear to be tied to the crime. Massey is therefore not only trying to identify a killer but also trying to survive as danger comes from both the murderer and the skies. Massey is an original character created for the show.
Neither du Maurier's novella nor Hitchcock's film includes murder-mystery elements, according to the source. The HBO version combines a detective story with natural horror. The source notes that an eight-episode season gives Spezialy more room to expand the story than a short story or a two-hour movie.
Hitchcock's film also made major changes to du Maurier's text. It added characters and situations that were not in the short story, while keeping the title and the idea of unexplained bird attacks. Du Maurier's story follows a farmer in post-World War II Cornwall, England, and ends more darkly than the film: the British Navy fails to stop the attacks, and the farmer accepts his fate when hawks descend on his farmhouse and force their way down the chimney.
By contrast, Hitchcock's movie follows a San Francisco socialite who travels to Bodega Bay, a small town in Northern California, after a potential love interest. Melanie, played by Tippi Hedren, survives the film in an almost catatonic state, and a radio broadcast suggests the military will bring the attacks in neighboring communities under control.
Heyday Television head of development Sue Gibbs has said the project is going back to du Maurier's novella as inspiration. She also said the story is about when nature turns on people, which she described as timely given climate change. The source says both du Maurier's and Hitchcock's versions comment on humanity's mistreatment of the natural world and on the idea that nature can turn on people without an obvious reason. Du Maurier was inspired by seeing a flock of seagulls attack a farmer, while Hitchcock drew on a real-life bird attack in Capitola, California, during production. In August 1961, seagulls flew at homes and cars and vomited half-digested anchovies, and streets were later littered with dead birds. A 2015 theory suggested domoic acid from certain algae blooms had infected the birds, causing disorientation and seizures that led to their deaths.
Sources: Comic Book Resources.