The Essex Serpent writer ties with Tiger Aspect for HBO Max drama

HBO Max is readying a female-focused erotic thriller from The Essex Serpent writer Anna Symon and Peaky Blinders indie Tiger Aspect, Broadcast can reveal.

The Banijay label is in development with the Warner Bros Discovery streamer on limited series Heatwave. Although yet to be greenlit, Broadcast understands the project is in late-stage development as an HBO Max Original. Symon, who has also penned BBC historical miniseries Mrs Wilson, is attached to write the series which is billed as an ‘erotic thriller exploring a transgressive relationship, told through the female lens’.

Set in Ibiza, the series takes place on a scorching family holiday when a forty-something woman embarks on a reckless affair with her friends’ teenage son.

Amid searing temperatures, long-held secrets and buried grievances are unearthed putting intense pressure on both marriages, with each couple forced to confront the reality of who they once were and who they have now become.

HBO Max has previously worked on scripted co-commissions including Channel 4 smash It’s A Sin, BBC1 dramas The Tourist and The Girl Before, and BBC3 comedy Starstruck.

Symon will exec produce as well as writing, with Tiger Aspect also exec producing.

Most recently, she was writer and exec producer on Apple TV+ period supernatural thriller The Essex Serpent, starring Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston.

She has also written on ITV female-focused drama Deep Water and Channel 4 period series Indian Summers.

Besides co-producing gangster epic Peaky Blinders with Caryn Mandabach, Tiger Aspect produced BBC / Amazon period crime thriller Ripper Street.

Tiger Aspect and HBO Max declined to comment.