Elijah Wood to Play Todd The Assistant In BBC America's 'Dirk Gently' Adaptation

It looks like Dirk Gently has just found an excellent assistant. The highly anticipated series based on Douglas Adams' novels has just added The Lord of The Rings star, Elijah Wood, as Dirk's long-suffering sidekick, Todd!

According to Deadline, Wood landed the lead role in the BBC America show which will be written by Max Landis. Although the character is Dirk's reluctant assistant, Todd doesn't see himself as a "sidekick," since he thinks that he is smarter than the detective.

The report describes Todd as someone who "just flat-out better than Dirk at a lot of things. He always attempts to solve matters with the fewest steps possible; despite being a compassionate, sweet, smarter-than-average man with biting wit, Todd often finds himself at the intersection of morally gray crossroads."

Although Todd doesn't actually appear in Adams' books, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency or The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, the character certainly sounds like he is based on Richard MacDuff, the software engineer who ends up helping Dirk find his missing cat.

Elijah Wood Lands a Leading Role in BBC's "Dirk Gently" Adaptation https://t.co/0OMJ2uqDQu pic.twitter.com/e1VN48eGrb

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This isn't the first time that Adams' book has been adapted into a TV series. There is a Dirk Gently show that was created by Howard Overman in 2010, where Dirk was played by Stephen Mangan and MacDuff was portrayed by Darren Boyd. The series had four episodes, with the pilot taking most of its plotline from Holistic Detective Agency. Unfortunately, Dirk Gently was not renewed for a second season.

Wood started out as a child actor, starring in films like Radio Flyer, The Good Son and Flipper. He has also played several different kinds of characters, like a Lacuna technician in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and a vicious assassin in Sin City. Wood is set to appear alongside Nicolas Cage in the crime flick The Trust.

There is no word yet on when Dirk Gently will begin production.