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'Beowulf' comes to British TV

The British network ITV is reportedly adapting the epic work.

'Beowulf' has been translated by various writers, including John McNamara and J.R.R. Tolkien.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

“Beowulf” will soon be coming to TV screens.

According to the Guardian, British network ITV will be adapting the epic poem for television. It will air in 13 parts.

The show will have “epic fights, thrilling chases, raids, celebrations and battles,” said the network.

“Beowulf” was adapted as a movie starring Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie in 2007, but the film was not well-received critically overall – it currently holds a score of 59 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic. Monitor film critic Peter Rainer gave the movie a B and wrote that “’Beowulf’ seems designed for all those audiences who would rather not dip into Old English. Zemeckis has converted the epic poem about the warrior who slays the monster Grendel into a species of computer game.”

The work also recently came to the attention of the public again when it was announced this past spring that a translation by “Lord of the Rings” writer J.R.R. Tolkien was being published. 

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