Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio addresses market for US version
Mercurio made the comments while appearing on an episode of the A Stab in the Dark podcast.
Jed Mercurio, the creator of Line of Duty, has discussed the possibility of an American version of of the programme, saying that, although there has been interest over the years, the US market prefers a "home-grown approach".
Mercurio was asked the question while appearing an episode of the A Stab in the Dark podcast, hosted by crime fiction novelist Mark Billingham.
Billingham asked the question with reference to the scrutiny that American policing is under right now, suggesting that a US version of the show "would be hot as hell" at the moment.
Mercurio replied, "I think that if you look at the American television market it is so much larger than ours and there are so many more people pitching ideas that the idea of something set in what they call, ‘internal affairs’ has been pitched repeatedly.
"It’s not something that hasn’t been explored in pilots and by the writers who really know that world, it’s just that there hasn’t been a successful series."
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"So, it does still feel like that ground is there to be won with the right approach, but I think in terms of the discussions with the American market, it has always been that they’d prefer a homegrown thing rather than a version of a British series," he added.
On the podcast, Mercurio also mentioned that he was currently locked in discussions with the BBC and the production company regarding when production might begin to resume on the sixth series of Line of Duty.
The series was four weeks into filming when production was closed down due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and Mercurio said that "there are a number of issues still to be resolved on an industry-wide basis" before a return to filming was possible."
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