EXCLUSIVE: Courtney Lauren Penn and Thomas Jane’s Renegade Entertainment has acquired bestselling author Candice Fox’s thriller, Gathering Dark, for development as a series. The project brings the trio back together on the heels of their success with the Amazon Freevee original series, Troppo.

Published in March of 2020, Gathering Dark centers on four women—a convicted killer, a gifted thief, a vicious ganglord and a disillusioned cop—who, together, are a missing girl’s only hope.

Dr. Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected pediatric surgeon, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She’s determined to keep her nose clean and win back custody of her son. But when her former cellmate begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her newfound freedom on the line. Detective Jessica Sanchez has always had a difficult relationship with the LAPD. And her inheritance of a multi-million dollar mansion as a reward for catching a killer has just made her police enemy number one. Her conviction of Blair comes back to haunt her in real time and a game of cat-and-mouse begins.

It’s been 10 years since Jessica arrested Blair for cold-blooded murder. So when Jessica opens the door to the disgraced doctor late one night she expects abuse, maybe even violence. What comes next is a plea for help…

Renegade and Fox’s other series Troppo, produced in partnership with AGC TV, is based on Fox’s novel, Crimson Lake. It centers on ex-cop Ted Conkaffey (Jane), who is falsely accused of a disturbing crime, then escaping to the tropics of Far North Queensland, where he becomes entangled with a newly formed private investigation agency. The show debuted in May as one of the first originals to launch on Amazon Freevee, following its rebranding from IMDbTV, and is currently rated at 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. It also launched on ABC in Australia earlier this year, to both critical and commercial success.

“Teaming up with Courtney, Thomas and Renegade is the stuff of dreams,” said Fox with regard to Gathering Dark. “They’re the kind of creative team to bring the richness, darkness and grit this story deserves.”

“Candice is a frank, inventive and daring voice in the crime genre. She creates incredibly human, taut and unpredictable characters – first with Ted and Amanda in TROPPO – and now, with her interweaving of four distinct, fascinating, gritty and relatable women in GATHERING DARK,” added Penn. “For a woman-led production company, it’s a rare opportunity to dig deep into material capturing a quatrain of women, who couldn’t be more different from each other, and are forced together and unite for their one shared instinct – the need to reunite a mother with her missing child.”

Renegade officially launched just before the pandemic, in December of 2019, and is now active across verticals including film, television, streaming and graphic novels and comics. The company has previously developed and produced films including the Western thriller The Last Son, starring Jane, Sam Worthington and Colson Baker, and Slayers, starring Jane, Abigail Breslin and Malin Akerman. Upcoming releases for 2022 include the Western thriller Murder at Yellowstone, starring Jane, Gabriel Byrne, Isaiah Mustafa, Richard Dreyfuss, Anna Camp and Aimee Garcia, and the thriller Dig, which has Jane starring alongside his daughter Harlow.

Fox’s first novel, Hades, won the Australian Crime Writers Association’s Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut in 2014, with her sequel Eden claiming that prize the following year. The Australian is also the author of bestsellers Fall, Crimson Lake and Redemption Point, and in 2015 began collaborating with James Patterson on novels including Never Never, Black & Blue, Fifty Fifty, Liar Liar and Hush Hush.

Renegade Entertainment and Jane are represented by Paradigm; Fox by APA & Left Bank Literary in Australia.