The Day of the Jackal was first brought into the public eye with the novel back in 1971. Following the story of an elusive lone assassin, The Jackal is someone who knows how to avoid detection, carrying out quick and creative kills for the highest bidder.

Over fifty years later, and the idea remains as gripping as ever, and in this new adaptation, the story is given a modern day twist, providing insight into this mysterious character for the first time.

Ahead of series launch, executive producers Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant speak about their version of this classic tale, how it pays homage to the novel and its subsequent 1973 movie, and how they gave The Jackal new layers that could prove to be his achilles heel in the criminal world.

NEAME: About four years ago, Bruce Vinokour, a literary agent who represents author Freddie Forsyth, came in to see me and he said, “Do you like The Day of the Jackal?”

I loved the book and I revere the movie. I am also slightly connected with it because my grandfather directed the film of Forsyth’s follow-up, The Odessa File, with Jon Voight in 1974.

MARCHANT: It's a tricky one because when you approach anything to reversion it, you need it to be as good as the original if not better, and ensure it doesn’t corrupt the original either. So in tackling it, we had to be very careful that we could meet those standards.

The other question you always have is, “What new do we bring to it? Why do we go back and explore this? What more can we say?” We had to ask ourselves what there was to exploit within the original while retaining its DNA.

That's the joy of long-form television, that we can tell, expand and explore a story on a much bigger canvas.

NEAME: This is the first time we've ever produced anything with Ronan, but his body of work is so great we knew he would be perfect for this. He loves the original and he's very good at creating propulsive plots, which was going to be so important.

He responded strongly to the thriller and the cat-and-mouse element of the idea. There's also a wonderful transactional and taciturn nature in his writing.

What's so clever is that the Jackal says very little. Particularly in the first episode, he doesn't speak very much other than in character when he's in disguise. Ronan’s style of writing really suited this work.

MARCHANT: It’s meant to be a love letter to the original, so we were trying to keep as close as we could to certain elements and themes, but it’s also an updating of it, too.

NEAME: We wanted to stay relatively faithful to the original book, just reconceived as a 10-part, contemporary series. Retaining the idea of an English assassin and a cat-and-mouse situation involving a chase across many European locations.

In addition, in common with the original, the assassin would be employed by a group of people who needed somebody taken out. At first, the biggest question was who the target would be. Should it be a Head of State as with the novel, or do certain non-government individuals hold the real power now?

The second big thing to consider is the difference between a movie and a TV series. In the original, you know nothing about The Jackal, he's a ghost. We knew immediately that it wouldn't work in a 10-part series. That's when the idea of him having a wife and child was established. It brings a whole other layer to the story and the character.

In our version, although there's an air of ghostliness about him, we do meet his family. We ask how he sustains the life of an international assassin while having a wife and family to whom he can't explain everything.

In addition, we get to know a good deal more about his backstory and reveal how he came into this work. We also decided to change a few key things, for example mixing the genders of the two main characters – the cat and the mouse – so that we have a male assassin and a female pursuer.

MARCHANT: At the heart of it is a political thriller that speaks to some of the themes we see in our world today. We have right-wing radicalism, a disenfranchised youth that feels the world is corrupted, and megalomaniac social media gurus.

An audience loves a cat and mouse chase, you have someone you're cheering for at times and then you remember he’s a paid assassin. We wanted the audience to root for both sides until you're put into a position where they're now inhabiting the same orbit.

We talked a lot at the beginning about the paranoid thrillers and conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, and used those as the backdrop to the show as well.

NEAME: When we started talking about potential candidates for the role, Eddie was at the top of the list, but we thought it would be nigh on impossible to get him.

However, you can tell from his body of work that he's very attracted to characters who require a lot of preparation and this role involved disguises, different languages, voices, and physicality. There is something incredibly beguiling about him.

At the heart of it, the Jackal is this English assassin who's globe-trotting around Europe and you do feel a sense of him as an Englishman. Indeed, in the novel until he proposes the codename of Jackal, he is simply referred to as The Englishman.

Eddie undoubtedly has that but he's also highly educated, intelligent, and very diligent: a bit like the Jackal, actually.

MARCHANT: Eddie has that kind of Englishness we felt was in keeping with the story and the original. He’s a fantastic actor, and with the great preparation that he does physically, he dived into the role. And I’m not just talking about what you can do with prosthetics and how you can change looks, but also his physicality and gait.

He also has the ability for you to empathise with him, but then he can also play very, very cold. You believe he could be an assassin.

We were thrilled he came on board. It's an iconic role and we've got an iconic actor for it.

MARCHANT: She brings – as great actors do – this vulnerability, and yet she can play the action and the physicality of it. You are immediately with her as a character and you want her to succeed.

She's someone slightly on the outside at her job and also slightly on the outside of her family. Her husband and daughter have a very close relationship, and she is a mother who is not always in tune with that. She is a career woman and loves her job. How does she make that work at home?

Lashana is an amazing actress who can balance the real emotion and characterisation required with the physicality her character needs.

NEAME: In this show, we're all over Europe. We're in Germany, Spain and we've got several other languages all the way through. But the Bianca character roots the show in London, MI6, and a British milieu.

The moment we started speaking about the character, Lashana was who we wanted. She has an incredible ability to mix huge presence on screen, determination and action, with emotional intelligence and nuance.

NEAME: There are some nice story and visual references to the original for people who loved the film, like the relationship the Jackal has with the armourer who makes the special weapon he uses. But of course, our version involves 3D printing and very different levels of technology from the original.

This series is much more high-tech and dark web. So we’ve got this lovely balance between the tradecraft of the original – things that people love in spy thrillers – but also lots of tech.

There are also some allusions to props and motor cars from the film. When the Jackal tests out the special firearm for this particular job, as in the original, he buys a watermelon in a market and practices shooting it. That is recreated shot-by-shot from the original.

NEAME: It's very ambitious with a lot of action. There are hundreds of different locations. We were shooting in London, Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, and all over the Croatian coast.

We went above and beyond to achieve the look of the series from the stunts to the military action, the visual effects, and the prosthetics. It's a very complex and demanding show and we’re excited for audiences to experience the chase.