Sky discovers Bad Wolf’s Witches adaptation

UK satcaster Sky has commissioned a drama series, A Discovery of Witches, for its linear and over-the-top services from Bad Wolf.

The show begins shooting in September at the new Wolf Studios in Wales and on location in Oxford as Sky’s latest original.

Based on a bestselling novel, the series is billed as a “a contemporary love story set against the backdrop of Oxford academic life, but in a world where a handful of witches, vampires and daemons live and work unseen amongst humans, hiding in plain sight”.

Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey) plays an enigmatic geneticist who is secretly a vampire, while Teresa Palmer (Hacksaw Ridge) stars as a brilliant academic trying to conceal her witch heritage.

Kate Brooke is showrunner, with book author Deborah Harkness executive producing alongside Bad Wolf’s Jane Tranter.

Sky Vision, Sky’s sales arm that launches new Sky drama Britannia in Cannes, will shop the series internationally.

“A Discovery of Witches is a proper love story for grown-ups,” said Anne Mensah, Sky’s head of drama. “However, the fact that it also examines science, magic and being ‘other’ in the modern world makes it a must watch.

“Deborah Harkness and Kate Brooke have given us a drama that packs both an emotional and thought-provoking punch.”

Sky recently unveiled the first fruit of its drama production pact with HBO, a drama about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.