‘The Birds’ Series With Sarah Snook in the Works at HBO

Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic film, The Birds, has long faced criticism for its brevity. At just two hours, the story of a San Francisco socialite being mysteriously pursued and attacked by winged creatures just didn't satisfy viewers. Even the 1994 made-for-TV sequel, The Birds II: Land's End, failed to quell these demands for more. Now, HBO is stepping in to address these complaints with a new limited series starring Sarah Snook.

The series, developed by the same team behind Watchman and the upcoming Harry Potter series, will add new elements to their modern-day adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novella. Executive producer Tom Spezialy and Harry Potter executive producer David Heyman have penned a pilot episode that introduces a murder mystery and new characters, most notably the main protagonist, Myra Massey, played by Snook.

The story follows Myra after a bitter custody battle. Returning home with her daughter, she secretly investigates her childhood friend's disappearance. It is during this investigation that the birds begin their vicious pecking. According to Deadline, the show will fill several episodes with an additional killer subplot and mysterious bird attacks that are "linked to the crime."

While there have been numerous attempts to remake The Birds over the years, Hollywood has repeatedly shied away. Even director Martin Campbell considered making it his Casino Royale follow-up with Naomi Watts, but the film never came to fruition. There was also a 2017 attempt to remake it as a BBC series, but it too fell through. Perhaps including a decades-old mystery for someone to solve amid being pecked to death was the key to making the adaptation finally take flight.