Max to Take 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'
Jacob Elordi as Dorrigo Evans in 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'
BBC
The Narrow Road to the Deep North has found a path to a U.S. release. The five-part period drama miniseries, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Australian writer Richard Flanagan, was originally picked up in 2018 when making TV shows on spec for hungry streamers was a plausible business model. However, production delays and a pandemic found the project filming on the far side of peak TV, where it's much harder to find a buyer, and though it found a home in Australia on Amazon's Prime Video, it took a minute to find one in the northern hemisphere. Finally, the BBC picked up the rights in mid-January, and now Max has followed suit for HBO.
Jacob Elordi (Saltburn) and Ciarán Hinds (Belfast) star in the shared role of the novel's protagonist, Dorrigo Evans. Elordi plays him as a young man in mid-century Australia as World War II heats up, and Hinds takes over the lead as the war concludes. While the novel is a fictionalized version of the war's events, much of it is drawn from real stories, including those of Flanagan's father, before and during the Second World War, intermixed with the story of Edward “Weary” Dunlop, an Australian World War II veteran and doctor renowned in his home country for standing up to his Japanese captors as a prisoner of war.
The series is currently preparing to debut at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival; Max made the deal to take the distribution rights to the series ahead of the Festivals' Thursday night kick off.
Jacob Elordi as Dorrigo Evans and Odessa Young as Amy Mulvaney in 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'
Prime Video/Curio Pictures/Sony Pictures Television
Here’s the series synopsis:
The series is a five-part saga charting the life of Dorrigo Evans, including his passionate love affair with Amy Mulvaney, his time held captive in a WW2 POW camp, and his later years as a revered surgeon and reluctant war hero. An intimate character study of a complex man, the epic drama is a compelling portrayal of the courage and cruelty of war and a timeless love story that sustains one through the darkest of times.
Elordi and Hinds are joined by co-stars Odessa Young (The Staircase) as Amy Mulvaney, Heather Mitchell (The Secrets She Keeps), Thomas Weatherall (Royal Flying Doctor Service), Charles An (Last King of the Cross), Olivia DeJonge (Elvis), Shô Kasamatsu (Dear Patient), Taki Abe (The Wolverine), Simon Baker (The Mentalist), and Masa Yamaguchi (The Brighton Miracle).
All five episodes were adapted by writer Shaun Grant from Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name and directed by Justin Kurzel, with Alexandra Taussig producing. Kurzel, Grant, and Flanagan are executive producers alongside Jo Porter & Rachel Gardner for Curio Pictures.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North premieres at the Berlinale Film Festivals over the weekend of February 14, 2025, and will stream on Max sometime before the end of the year.
