A new television adaptation of
The Saint was announced in December 2012;
Roger Moore was appointed to produce a new series to star
Adam Rayner as Simon Templar and
Eliza Dushku as his assistant Patricia Holm. In a later promotion, it was also shown that Moore would star in the new series, as would his successor in
Return of the Saint,
Ian Ogilvy. Production of a pilot episode was completed by early 2013. As of summer 2014, it was awaiting a broadcast time in the U.S. However, the piece underwent reshoots for the ending and add an extra prologue in November 2015, and the pilot episode was retooled as a TV film,
The Saint, getting an online release on 12 July 2017, two months after Moore's death. The pilot was based upon the character created by
Leslie Charteris in 1928, and although the plot of the film has no relation to any of Charteris' stories, the villain, Rayt Marius, was a recurring presence in the early Saint novels, and was the central villain of the 1930 novel
The Last Hero. Although the character of Patricia Holm was a regular presence in the Saint novels from the 1920s through the early 1940s, this was only the second production (after the 1943 film
The Saint Meets the Tiger) in which she has appeared. Inspector John Henry Fernack was also a prominent recurring character in the books. While the pilot was directed by
Simon West, the new material to extend it was directed by Ernie Barbarash. He had limited windows of availability for Rayner, who was busy on his series
Tyrant, and Dushku; in the new material Rayner sports a beard, as in
Tyrant, and Templar's new scenes with Holm take place over Skype calls so the actors did not need to be available on the same day. Inspector Fernack does not appear in the new scenes with the bearded Templar; an equivalent role is filled by Kyle Horne as FBI agent Cooper. Ian Ogilvy's role was greatly expanded, with new flashbacks to establish his backstory, and Roger Moore recorded new dialogue to replace lines which no longer fit the reworked plot. ==References==