News

It was announced today that 72 Films – who produced the critically acclaimed Royal Bastards: Rise of The Tudors for Sky HISTORY – have been commissioned to make a brand-new 3x60 TV mini-series, Royal Kill List featuring Olivier Award winner Sheila Atim, BAFTA Award winner, Jared Harris, and SAG Award winner, Joseph Fiennes. This co-production between A+E Networks EMEA and pay-tv broadcaster Sky will premiere on Sky HISTORY in early 2024.

Following the historic coronation of King Charles III earlier this year, Royal Kill List looks back at one of the most seismic events in British royal history.

On 30th January 1649, for the first and only time, a British monarch, King Charles I, was publicly executed, having been tried and convicted of treason by Parliament. This bloody spectacle heralded ten years of Britain as a republic before, in May 1660, the monarchy was restored with the accession of King Charles II. There followed public celebration and acclamation for the new king, but he was in no mood for forgiveness.

While publicly planning his own lavish coronation to take place the following year, in April 1661, the new king had, behind the scenes, ordered an exhaustive search for the death warrant ordering his father’s execution.  On finding it and the 59 signatories appended to it – only 38 of whom were still alive by that time – Charles ordered the biggest manhunt in royal history. 

Told through dramatic reconstruction, with three of Britain’s leading actors serving as primary storytellers – Sheila Atim for the Royalists, Jared Harris for the Regicides, and Joseph Fiennes for King Charles II – this blockbuster mini-series plays out as a Jacobean tragedy detailing the king’s lifelong obsession to hunt down, try and kill all those responsible for his father’s execution and his own desperate flight into exile. Spanning two decades and played out over three continents, the series reveals how riven and bitterly divided Britain was in the mid-seventeenth century, when the fate of the monarchy swung first one way, then the other. 

As well as recounting the largely forgotten lives and grisly deaths of some of the most prominent members of the Britain’s Cromwellian establishment, the series affords a glimpse into the largely forgotten or untold stories of the influential women at court, in whose hands the lives of some of the most prominent of the regicides ultimately rested. 

Dan Korn, Vice President of Programming at A+E Networks EMEA, said: “Following the celebrations that recently heralded a new Carolean era, there can be no better time to revisit the events surrounding one of King Charles III’s most famous antecedents and namesakes, whose defiance of Parliament set in train a series of bloody events whose historic legacy endures to this day.”

Julian Jones, Executive Producer from 72 Films, said: “After the success of our previous collaboration, “Royal Bastards: Rise of the Tudors,” we are thrilled to be teaming up once again with Sky History. Royal Kill List takes us to one of the most precarious, resonant, and bloody moments in British history where the entire idea of monarchy hangs in the balance, and the story of how Charles II takes back the throne plays like the ultimate revenge thriller.” 

The series was commissioned and executive-produced by Dan Korn, VP of Programming at A+E Networks EMEA, with Diana Carter, Commissioning Editor and Head of Talent at A+E Networks UK. 

For 72 Films, a Fremantle company, the series will be exec-produced by David Glover and Julian Jones and directed by Alice Smith.

For Sky, the series is commissioned by Zai Bennett, Sky’s Managing Director of Content, and Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries. Hayley Reynolds, Commissioning Editor, will serve as executive producer for Sky. 

This is a story about espionage, revenge, power, loyalty, and the moment that changed the landscape of British politics and society forever. 

Royal Kill List will premiere on Sky HISTORY in the Spring of 2024.

Any information or quotes from this press release must credit: Royal Kill List coming to Sky HISTORY in Spring 2024.

ENDS 

For more information, please contact:

Organic A+ENetworks@organic-publicity.co.uk

A+E Networks EMEA Barbara Pianca / Barbara.Pianca@aenetworks.co.uk   

A+E Networks EMEA

At A+E Networks EMEA, we share stories that matter everywhere, anywhere. A leader in factual entertainment, our compelling, award-winning content connects with millions across the UK, Nordics, Benelux, Germany, Italy, Spain, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Our portfolio of premium brands – The HISTORY® Channel, Crime + Investigation®, HISTORY2®, BLAZE®, and COSMO TV® - inspire and excite viewers with hit franchises (Forged in Fire), must-see dramas (Vikings) and original commissions (The Hunt for Baltic Gold and Ross Kemp: Shipwreck Treasure Hunter). Our stories are global and local, linear and digital, and always compelling. With offices in London, Rome, Madrid, Warsaw, Munich, and Johannesburg, we are a truly international company that celebrates difference and diversity.

About Sky HISTORY

Sky HISTORY is the flagship brand of the A+E Networks® EMEA portfolio which is made up of true crime channel Crime + Investigation®; Sky HISTORY2® and free to air channel BLAZE®. Sky HISTORY is available in the UK on Sky, Virgin and on streaming service NOW. www.SkyHistory.co.uk

72 Films 

72 films is an independent production company founded by David Glover and Mark Raphael.

We aim to make programmes that inspire, entertain, and make a positive contribution to the cultural landscape. We have won major commissions with the BBC, National Geographic, Channel 4, Sky, Paramount, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon. In 2021 we were voted the Best Independent Television Production Company in the UK in an industry poll.