Luc Roeg, producer and CEO of UK sales company Independent, has secured screenwriter Michael Hirst to write the screenplay of Bernard Cornwell’s novel Agincourt

Hirst, who was nominated for a BAFTA for his screenplay of Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth in 1998, has recently had success with Emmy award-winning TV series The Tudors, which averaged 2 million viewers in the UK.

Cornwell’s novel Agincourt sold more than 183,000 hardback copies in the UK in the first three months of publication.  It tells the story of a brave archer, Nicholas Hook, who fought alongside King Henry V, in what was one of the bloodiest and most gruelling battles in the history of Europe.

The film’s budget is expected to be $35m (€25m) as and it will be a European co-production. The film rights deal as negotiated by Gemma Hirst, head of literary media at Peters Fraser and Dunlop on behalf of Toby Eady Associates, and Fraser Bloom at Davenport Lyons on behalf of Independent.