Magpie Pictures is developing a six-part series based on Mireille Juchau’s novel ‘The World Without Us’, to be titled The Hive.
The series is set in the fictional northern NSW town of Bidgalong, a community marked by the existence and subsequent loss of a commune in a fire 13 years ago. A mystery drama, it will follow a mother and daughter as they try to break free from secrets and scars that have silenced and constrained them.
With development funding support from Screen NSW, the production company has just embarked on an intensive writer’s room in Sydney to further develop the series, which already attracted UK interest when pitched at Content London 2019.
Angela Betzien will be the lead writer, working with story producer and writer Blake Ayshford. A broadcaster is yet to be announced.
“We are thrilled to have such an exceptionally talented and dynamic writing team to transform this beautiful story into an exciting high-end series for the small screen,” says Magpie Pictures producer Lois Randall.
“It is a visually stunning portrayal of a collision of worlds that is rarely explored on screen. A powerfully timely series, it speaks to audiences who enjoy sophisticated high-end dramas with unapologetic, complex characters and stories set in unique worlds. Mireille Juchau is such an extraordinary writer and has captured this intriguing world and characters so authentically in her novel.”
Also on the Magpie Pictures development is slate is Dog Box, high-end crime drama Slit, with Dena Curtis’ Inkey Media,Tata Detective with Taryne Laffar’s company Pink Pepper, and two Lawrence Johnson films, Once a Queen and Love Me Tender.