In a deal with sister company NBCUniversal International Distribution, Syfy UK has snapped up the first run rights to Hunters – the short-lived drama series from The Walking Dead executive producer Gale Anne Hurd. The series will premiere on Syfy UK on Wednesday August 31st at 9pm.
Hunters follows Flynn, a highly decorated FBI Special Agent whose search for his missing wife leads him to a secret government unit, the Exco-Terrorist Unit, who were assembled to hunt a group of ruthless terrorists – shadowy figures that may or may not be from this world. Now Flynn has teamed up with the most valuable agent of the ETU, Allison Regan, who is particularly adept at dealing with the infiltration of the alien Hunters – because she’s one herself.
Created by Natalie Chaidez and executive produced by Hurd, the series is based on Whitley Strieber’s best-selling novel Alien Hunter and is produced by Valhalla Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. The cast is led by Nathan Phillips (Wolf Creek) and also includes Britne Oldford, Julian McMahon, Mark Coles Smith, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Laura Gordon, Shannon Berry, Gareth Davies and Sarah Peirse.
Hunters was part of a wave of new programming commissioned by the U.S. Syfy network as part of their re–commitment to scripted series. While almost every new series that has aired as part of this push, such as 12 Monkeys and Dark Matter, have been successful, Hunters failed to strike a chord with viewers in the United States. The series averaged less than 500K total viewers in live+same day ratings and was recently cancelled after one season.
For Syfy UK, the deal to acquire Hunters, which was struck before the cancellation, continues their programming strategy of mirroring the output of the U.S. network as much as is possible. It joins a line up of exclusive first run dramas on the channel that includes Killjoys, Dark Matter, 12 Monkeys, The Librarians and Canadian Vampire drama Bitten. The deal also comes shortly after TVWise revealed that Syfy UK opted not to renew their licensing deal with Warner Bros. International Television Distribution for The Vampire Diaries spin-off The Originals.
