RUINS: RISE & FALL

BOSSANOVA MEDIA

Length: 8 x 60’

Producer: Like A Shot Entertainment

Networks: Warner Bros. Discovery (EMEA), SBS (Australia), Channel 4 (U.K.), TV2 (Norway), Sky New Zealand

Every year for a decade, London-based BossaNova Media has held a pitching event dubbed Development Day, which brings together its biggest producers and clients. The idea is to fast-track greenlights and get factual projects out the door at a quicker pace. Paul Heaney’s company itself acts as the central commissioner, putting projects into production and then sells the rights to buyers who have already stated their interest.

Ruins: Rise & Fall is one such series. The eight-part show was greenlit in April, with Heaney saying at the time, “Some projects you invest in are a bit of a risk, but Ruins: Rise & Fall isn’t one of them.” The reason for that is the unquenching market need for solid factual projects that can both be popular on linear channels and drive older viewers to streaming services.

The series explores 24 sites around the world and is built on one idea: every ruin has two stories—how it rose and how it fell. Viewers are taken to ancient Sri Lankan rock fortress Sigiriya, the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey and Roman auxiliary fort Vindolanda in the U.K. and on to more modern places such as Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair in Poland and vast underground Nazi war factories.

Archaeologists and historians tell their stories from the ambition and ingenuity that made them, to the conflict and catastrophe that transformed them into the ruins of today. Digital reconstruction will show sites being stripped back to before the first stone was laid to seeing them rebuilt and then torn apart through war, disaster, abandonment and decay.

Given that several of the largest global territories are already off the market is a testament to BossaNova’s strategic foresight, so those buyers in the remaining territories should move fast.