Syfy UK has secured the UK rights to CBC’s supernatural mystery series Trickster after striking a deal with international distributor Abacus Media Rights. The series is based on the novel Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson. No word just yet on a premiere date.
Trickster follows Jared, an Indigenous teen in the town of Kitimat, a coastal town in Northern British Columbia, who is struggling to keep his dysfunctional family above water. He holds down an after-school job and cooks ecstasy on the side to support his separated parents – partying mom Maggie, who self-medicates an undiagnosed mental illness, and unemployable dad Phil, who has a painkiller addiction and a new girlfriend.
But when Jared starts seeing strange things — talking ravens, doppelgängers, skin monsters — his already chaotic life is turned upside down. At first, he thinks he’s losing his mind, but to his relief, and terror, the supernatural events are all too real. It turns out there’s more than meets the eye to the place Jared grew up, the people he loves – and to Jared himself. He’s inherited magical abilities from his mum, and from someone Jared never even knew existed – his real dad, Wade. Jared’s mum hid the truth from him because Wade is not just any dad. He’s also the mythical Trickster.
And Wade’s reason for suddenly showing up in his son’s life is centuries in the making. Wade has come back to determine if Jared has inherited his magic. Because only one Trickster can exist at a time. With his friend Crashpad and girlfriend Sarah, Jared navigates an already tricky situation that has deadly implications – Jared needs to stop his dad from killing him, but his real struggle is to control his own life. Being a teenager already sucks. The supernatural death threat makes it suck that much harder.
The drama series, which has already been renewed for a second season, is produced by Streel Films and Sienna Films and stars Joel Oulette (Monkey Beach), Crystle Lightning (Outlander), Kalani Queypo (Fear the Walking Dead), Anna Lambe (The Grizzlies), Nathan Alexis (Tin Star), Georgine Lightning (Blackstone), Craig Lauzon (Royal Canadian Air Farce) and Joel Thomas. Trickster was created by Michelle Latimer and Tony Elliott, who also act as executive producers alongside Sienna Films’ Jennifer Kawaia and Julia Sereny (Cardinal, Ransom).
At Syfy UK, Trickster joins a limited slate of first run acquisitions that also inlcudes: CBS’ Blood & Treasure; CBS All Access’ The Twilight Zone; and The CW’s The Outpost and Pandora. In addition to closing the UK deal, Abacus Media Rights has also sold Trickster to NITV and SBS On Demand in Australia, Globoplay in Brazil and KinoPoisk (Yandex) in Russia. All four deals come the better part of a month before the series is set to launch in Canada on CBC.
Check out CBC’s trailer for Trickster below:
