Although many of us will remember Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, there have actually been a couple of other films based on Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley in the past decade or so, including Ripley’s Game, starring John Malkovich, and Ripley Under Ground, with Barry Pepper.

Now there’s another take on the possibly gay of bisexual character in the works, as THR reports that Television 360, Endemol Shine Studios and publisher Diogenes are teaming up to turn the five-book series in a TV show. It’s early days though as before shopping it around to potential partners, they want to package it up with a writer or major filmmaker, as well as finding someone to play the title role.

Ripley is a true antihero – suave and charming, but also a con artist and serial killer – who is a very dangerous man to be around if you have something he wants. While it’s never explictly stated in the book that he is gay or bisexual, it is broadly hinted at and many have assumed that he is. For example there is his obsession with Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley (which was made unabashedly homoerotic in the 1999 film), and his lack of sexual desire for his wife, while many have read a gay subtext between Ripley and Frank Pierson in The Boy Who Followed Ripley. It’s not known whether this side of Tom Ripley will make it through to the TV show.

It should be added that Highsmith herself said she didn’t think Ripley was gay, instead suggesting that he wasn’t particularly sexual at all, but that he appreciated other men’s look (and certainly envied them). Of course the author wasn’t afraid of homosexuality, as in 1952 she wrote the lesbian-themed romance The Price Of Salt (under a pseudonym). Indeed it’s the fact that a film version of The Price Of Salt did so well at Cannes (which stars Cate Blanchett and goes by the title Carol), that makes this a particularly sensible time to try and bring Ripley to the small screen.