\n\tEXCLUSIVE: This one\u2019s being billed as \u201cThe Crown meets Peaky Blinders\u201d \u2013 albeit set on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n
\n\tCalgary\u2019s Titan1Studios<\/a> has secured media and adaptation rights to Stephen R. Bown<\/a>\u2018s historical book The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson\u2019s Bay Empire<\/a>, and is developing a TV drama series titled House of Hudson<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe series will be centered on \u201cthe cutthroat, 19th-century corporate battles that forged a continent,\u201d with Titan1Studios, which has exclusive media and adaptation rights, underway on development. A search for a showrunner is underway.<\/p>\n \n\tHere\u2019s the synopsis: \u201cSet against the dramatic backdrop of the 1820s, House of Hudson operates as The Crown meets Peaky Blinders \u2013 exploring the bloody war of attrition between the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company and its hyper-violent rival, the North West Company, culminating in their forced corporate merger and the ruthless rise of Sir George Simpson, the cold-blooded governor known as \u2018The Little Emperor.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe plan is for the series to shift between \u201cthe opulent, scheming boardrooms of London and Montreal and the unforgiving wilderness,\u201d looking at at British imperial machinery in the UK, the struggle for the Pacific Northwest frontier in the U.S., and the corporate origins of modern Canada<\/a>. \u201cAt its core, it is a universal, character-driven boardroom thriller about the global cost of early capitalism,\u201d said Titan1Studios.<\/p>\n \n\tBown\u2019s book, The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson\u2019s Bay Empire, was published in 2020 and is known for taking a fresh perspective on foundational Canadian stories, with a broader look at events that highlight characters not previously part of dominant narratives. Since release, the book has won the 2021 National Business Book Award and the J.W. Dafoe Book Prize.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cStephen R. Bown managed to take a foundational piece of North American history and frame it with the relentless pacing, psychological depth, and tension of a modern corporate drama,\u201d said Rathan Moorthy, CEO and executive producer of Titan1Studios.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe Hudson\u2019s Bay Company was effectively the Amazon of the 19th century \u2013 a multi-national corporate entity with its own currency, private military, and total control over millions of square miles. We are thrilled to bring Stephen\u2019s masterwork to the screen for global television audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen I wrote The Company, my goal was to bring the human drama, complex motivations, and fierce corporate rivalries of the fur trade to life,\u201d added. Bown. \u201cTitan1Studios shares a compelling, clear vision for how to translate this high-stakes narrative into a visually stunning, character-focused television event. I\u2019m excited to see this epic story brought to a whole new audience.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTitan1Studios\u2019 Moorthy and VP of Content Wes Ambrecht are leading on the project, with the rights negotiations handled in collaboration with Jake Babad and Caroline Vassallo at Westwood Creative Art.<\/p>\n \n\tBown has authored several books on history, exploration and biography, including The Company, Island of the Blue Foxes and Dominion, and his books have been translated into multiple languages, earning acclaim for their cinematic storytelling and rigorous historical research. <\/p>\n \n\tFor Titan1Studios, the option adds to a slate already including heist drama Sideshow (working title)<\/a>, an Events at Unity Farm TV adaptation<\/a> and a franchise project<\/a> based around Steve Lerner\u2019s Cat Assassin, with Dave Bautista\u2019s Dogbone Entertainment also attached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: This one\u2019s being billed as \u201cThe Crown meets Peaky Blinders\u201d \u2013 albeit set on the other side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,103,88,378559,378560,378561,305455],"class_list":["post-904577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-house-of-hudson","tag-stephen-r-bown","tag-the-company-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hudsonu2019s-bay-empire","tag-titan1studios"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}