IN her first major television role, Scarlett Johansson will star in an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel “The Custom of the Country” for Sony Pictures Television.

    The eight-episode series will be written by Christopher Hampton, a screenwriter and playwright with a knack for period adpatations, including “Atonement,” “Dangerous Liaisons,” “The Secret Agent” and “A Dangerous Method.”

    Johansson will play Undine Spragg, a young woman from a nouveau riche Midwestern family that relocates to New York City, where complicated romantic entanglements ensue for the socially ambitious beauty.

    While the novel is perhaps not as well known as Wharton’s other work, like “The House of Mirth,” it has been cited as an influence by “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes, who has compared the character of Undine Spraggs to such literary heroines as Becky Sharp of “Vanity Fair” and Scarlett O’Hara of “Gone With the Wind.”

    The project makes Johansson the latest big-screen star to dabble in the miniseries format, which offers the creative freedom increasingly associated with television and the ability to explore a character in depth, without the potentially years-long commitment of an ongoing series.(SD-Agencies)