Stiller bringing "Gods" to small screen

Ben Stiller outside Universal Studios in Los Angeles November 13, 2007.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Ben Stiller's production company, Red Hour Films, is venturing into television with "Gods Behaving Badly."

Red Hour has optioned Marie Phillips' debut novel to develop it into a comedy series.

Phillips was working at a book shop and writing a StrugglingAuthor blog in her hometown of London until she sold "Gods," a contemporary comedic tale set in London, where the gods of ancient Greece have been living together in a house since the 1660s. They still are running the world, fighting with one another, but they are dangerously bored and living in much reduced circumstances. Apollo has turned a Goldman Sachs market trader into a tree after she refused casual sex with him. Aphrodite runs a telephone sex service.

The book, published in the U.K. to strong reviews, is being released December 10 in the U.S.

The search is under way for a writer to adapt "Gods" for the small screen.

Red Hour recently wrapped production on the feature comedy "Tropic Thunder" for DreamWorks, which Stiller is starring in and directing from a script he co-wrote.

On the TV side, Stiller -- who appeared on the big screen this year in "The Heartbreak Kid" -- most recently directed and guest-starred on a comedy pilot for CBS starring his wife, Christine Taylor.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter