Fremantle brings RTL Creative’s strategic reality competition Pandora’s Box to Mipcom

Pandora’s Box is based on the Greek myth

Fremantle is taking Pandora’s Box, a new Dutch strategic reality competition that transforms a timeless myth into high-stakes gameplay, to Mipcom.

Pandora’s Box is an original concept from the RTL Creative Unit, which co-created The Traitors, co-developed with Fremantle and Blue Circle, a Fremantle company in the Netherlands.

The format has three global productions already underway: Blue Circle is producing the series for RTL 4 in The Netherlands; Studio89 is producing the format for M6 in France and Ufa is producing for RTL in Hungary.

Inspired by the legendary Greek myth – where Pandora, the first mortal woman on earth, was given a sealed box by the gods with one command, never open it – the format brings that moment into today’s reality, as contestants competing for a cash prize must face the same test.

The Box conceals the names of cursed contestants, marking them for elimination and setting the stakes for survival.

Keeping Pandora’s Box closed raises the prize pot but if a player opens the box to discover who is cursed, they get to swap a name out for another player, but they risk triggering repercussions the whole group will suffer including lost prize money.

Fremantle handles international production and distribution.