‘Avatar’ Star Sam Worthington and Sofia Carson Set to Unravel a Global Conspiracy in Hulu’s ‘The Parsifal Mosaic’

Robert Ludlum’s name is practically shorthand for the modern spy thriller, and Universal hatched the Jason Bourne franchise from his signature novel series. Yet ‘The Parsifal Mosaic‘ has spent years waiting for its own big screen moment. A film adaptation was announced at Universal in 2009 with Ron Howard attached to direct, and Zhang Yimou later entered talks before the project failed to take off.

The 1982 novel opens with Michael Havelock watching his partner and lover, double agent Jenna Karas, get gunned down by his own agency. With nothing left, he decides to quit the game. Then, on a crowded railway platform in Rome, he spots her alive.

That sighting turns Havelock into a marked man, hunted by both American and Russian assassins. He ends up trapped in a mosaic of treachery orchestrated by a top-level mole known as Parsifal.

Now the story is finally getting a fresh shot, this time on TV. Sam Worthington and Sofia Carson are attached to star and executive produce a drama series based on the novel, in development at Hulu, according to an exclusive from Variety. Worthington will play Havelock, while Carson takes on Jenna Karas.

The small screen adaptation comes from Legendary Entertainment and writer Wes Tooke. Tooke was showrunner on USA Network’s ‘Colony’ and also worked on Amazon’s ‘Jean-Claude Van Johnson’. He executive produces alongside Ben Smith and Jeffrey Weiner of Captivate Entertainment, director Seth Gordon and the 2 stars.

Smith and Weiner aren’t newcomers to this material. Captivate’s Weiner and Smith were also producing the earlier Universal film effort with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. That kind of continuity suggests the property has had committed champions for a long time.

The official synopsis puts betrayal front and center. After years of dangerous fieldwork for the CIA, Havelock is ready to get out of the game when he learns that his partner Jenna, secretly the love of his life, has betrayed him. That discovery sends him unravelling a powerful conspiracy that reaches around the globe.

Worthington is best known for ‘Avatar’, and he returned as Jake Sully in ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’, which grossed $1.490 billion at the box office. The film reached Disney+ and Hulu on June 24, which gives his move to a Hulu spy drama a nice bit of symmetry. It’s also a big change of pace from the blue-skinned world of Pandora.

Carson has built a strong streaming résumé of her own. She starred in Netflix hits ‘Purple Hearts’ and ‘Carry-On’, and both debuted at No. 1 on the weekly Global Top 10 Films list. Her romantic drama ‘My Oxford Year’, which she also executive produced, premiered on August 1, 2025 and hit No. 1 globally, topping the charts in 73 countries.

Taking on an executive producer role here continues that pattern. Carson is now shaping projects behind the scenes as well as leading them.

The book blends espionage with a lost-love story, and that mix gives the series an emotional hook beyond the usual cloak-and-dagger plotting. One reviewer even called it the ultimate break-up novel of the spy genre. If the series leans into that romantic tension, it could stand apart from more clinical spy dramas.

The source material also has a distinct historical backdrop. It’s the one Ludlum novel focused entirely on the Cold War and the possibility of nuclear war. How the series handles that setting, or updates it for today, remains to be seen.

Ludlum’s readership is estimated at between 300 and 500 million copies, so there’s a built-in audience of thriller fans. That readership, plus a rising cast and a streamer with a track record in serialized drama, gives ‘The Parsifal Mosaic’ a real chance to finally break through.

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