Transatlantic prodco Bad Wolf is aiming to build on the success of His Dark Materials and A Discovery of Witches by adapting another literary trilogy.
Jack Thorne adapted Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books
It’s a year since official word came that Sony Pictures Television (SPT) had taken a majority stake in Bad Wolf, the transatlantic production company set up by former BBC execs Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner in 2015 and behind series including BBC and HBO dramas His Dark Materials and Industry, and A Discovery of Witches for Sky.
The deal, which included the Wolf Studios Wales facility in Cardiff and Bad Wolf’s 30% stake in Bad Wolf America (run from LA by Gardner and established as a sister company in 2019) ended Sky, HBO and Access Entertainment’s minority investments in the business.
Jane Tranter
The latter company, overseen by fellow BBC alum Danny Cohen, had acquired close to a quarter of Bad Wolf in 2017, helping fuel two huge dramas: Jack Thorne’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials novels and that of Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy, which became A Discovery of Witches.
But there were rights to another literary trilogy in Bad Wolf’s back pocket, based on Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles, a project gestating since the company’s inception. Amid the huge success of Dark Materials and Witches, plus high-stakes banking drama Industry (now also set for a third season), Sky’s I Hate Suzie and involvement in The Night Of and Succession, the adaptation of Cornwell’s Arthurian epic remained in development. Then there was the pandemic.
As 2021 began, Tranter expressed concerns to C21 in a lockdown Zoom interview about the viability of smaller indies as Covid-19 pushed up production costs, forcing a reduction in the number of episodes of Dark Materials S2 and Witches S3. At that point, Access remained attached but as the year progressed and the TV landscape changed, with US studio streamers emerging to battle Netflix and Amazon, Bad Wolf’s founders felt the company needed to change too. Another BBC connection, SPT president of international production Wayne Garvie, provided the solution.
Julie Gardner
“It was during the first lockdown that it began to occur to us a sale might be a good idea. It also felt like the end of our first act was going to come with the finish of our two massive trilogies,” explains Tranter. “We were getting to the end of the first five years with those pieces and it was time to look at the next new strategy. The whole broadcasting landscape had changed.”
The exec cites the shifts brought about by Comcast’s US$39bn 2018 takeover of Sky, AT&T’s US$85.4bn 2016 acquisition of Time Warner and the subsequent US$43bn creation this year of Warner Bros Discovery, with HBO changing hands twice as a result. Access also altered course, deciding against a planned move into distribution. Another factor was that SPT saw the potential of The Warlord Chronicles and backed it immediately, under the title of the first novel in the series, The Winter King.
“They took it under their wing and said they’d fully fund it and sell it to broadcasters, and that’s pretty much what they did,” says Tranter. Indeed, UK broadcaster ITV picked up the project swiftly for its new hybrid AVoD/SVoD streaming service ITVX, with SPT now selling the show internationally.
Regarding the tone of The Winter King, Tranter and Gardner last week told Content London delegates it is not intended to compete with fantasy shows like House of the Dragon and will in fact be closer to Peaky Blinders. “It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ve read every version of the Arthurian legends and have always wanted to reimagine those stories. Bernard’s books are perfect because they are visceral and entertaining. They have the quality of a family saga,” said Gardner.
Tranter adds she and Gardner were impressed with what SPT has done in growing The Crown producer Left Bank Pictures and Sex Education maker Eleven, and with His Dark Materials exec producer Dan McCulloch recently joining as Bad Wolf’s director of content, the firm is looking ahead to its next phase.
“It is very difficult to produce a show on the scale of His Dark Materials as a fully fledged indie, and I don’t think there’s another company that has done it in that way,” says Tranter.
“Everyone else has gone through a studio-type relationship, and we thought if we’re going to keep challenging ourselves, let’s get a partner to do that with. This is Bad Wolf 2.0. It’s the next five years and we’re looking for a different type of big show to underpin it.”
