{"id":23376,"date":"2025-09-09T08:30:56","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T12:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T09:46:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:46:15","slug":"making-king-conqueror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/","title":{"rendered":"Making\u00a0King & Conqueror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broadcasters and platforms in 100-plus markets have snapped up King & Conqueror<\/em> from Paramount Global Content Distribution. The epic international co-production, which launched on BBC One and iPlayer in the U.K. and Prime Video in the U.S. last month, chronicles the events leading up to the Norman invasion of England in 1066, with James Norton starring as Harold, Earl of\u00a0Wessex, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as\u00a0<\/strong>William, Duke of Normandy. Both also serve as executive producers on the eight-part production.<\/p>\n

Several entities came together to execute on the series, with The Development Partnership, the production arm of The Partnership Group talent agency, aligning with Rabbit Track Pictures (Norton\u2019s production company), Richard Halliwell\u2019s Shepherd Content, Baltasar Korm\u00e1kur\u2019s RVK Studios in Iceland and CBS Studios.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany moons ago, Michael Robert Johnson, our writer and creator, sent me a two-page document for his particular take on how he wanted to tell this story,\u201d Robert Taylor, who heads up The Development Partnership and is an executive producer on the show, tells\u00a0TV Drama<\/em>. \u201cThe first thing I did was Google, When was the last time there was a series about the Battle of Hastings? It felt exciting but familiar, particularly in the U.K. It\u2019s kind of astonishing that it hasn\u2019t been told in episodic form before.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, Taylor had been talking to Norton, a client of The Partnership Group, about adding a producer hat to his skill set. Once Norton teamed up with Kitty Kaletsky to launch Rabbit Track Pictures, development on the project kicked into high gear, with Korm\u00e1kur soon on board as the director and Coster-Waldau attached as co-lead alongside Norton.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike, our writer, figured out that the reason 1066 and the Battle of Hastings have never been adapted is because it\u2019s not solely the Harold Godwinson story that\u2019s interesting, nor solely the William the Conqueror narrative that would ignite a drama,\u201d Kaletsky says. \u201cIt\u2019s about the interconnection of their two tales. Once he unlocked that solution, it became about marriage as well. It becomes about not just one nation but two. It becomes about the formation of a new continent and arguably a new world. So, starting with a character but then blowing it out globally appealed to all of us from creative and commercial perspectives. That\u2019s been the bedrock of the development process from the beginning. How do we tell two men\u2019s stories, two couples\u2019 stories and two nations\u2019 stories and make it feel personal and yet also universal? Plus, it felt important because it hadn\u2019t been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series is deeply rooted in research, Kaletsky explains, with a wealth of nonfiction books used to understand the historical figures and realities of the time period. \u201cThere is also a lot that you can lean on in terms of primary sources,\u201d she says. \u201cBut the brilliance of creating a drama that\u2019s almost a thousand years old is that there are also huge gaps. That\u2019s where artistic license comes in. We did a ton of research. We had a historical advisor throughout the development process, guiding us and highlighting the areas that we knew were filling in the gaps and were less likely to be accurate. Mike\u2019s approach to language and storytelling leaned into the bits that we have to dramatize to appeal to and then retain an audience. It\u2019s incredibly well-researched, but it\u2019s also a drama, not a documentary. That was something that we wanted to revel in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the scale of the production, narratively and financially, the show needed multiple partners, Taylor notes. \u201cIt felt appropriate to have that international co-production structure to tell that story authentically. If you look at the list of credits, it feels like there must be 200 people involved in the show, but as ever with these things, there is a core team of multiple parties with a vested interest. On day one, we all wanted to make the same show, and ultimately, that\u2019s the key. We\u2019ve probably all been involved in multi-party processes before, where one broadcaster is making one show and another one is making another. That was not the case here. Everybody had an understanding of the vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sense of a shared creative vision was paramount, Kaletsky notes. \u201cFinancing a show of this nature is always difficult, but everybody was singing from the same hymn sheet. It felt a lot simpler than it looks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Korm\u00e1kur\u2019s RVK Studios played a crucial role in identifying suitable locations in Iceland. \u201cHaving a production services company producing alongside us in Iceland meant that they were heavily involved in the creative as well as in the practical,\u201d Kaletsky says. \u201cIn terms of our exteriors, we had to find, on location in Iceland, Norway, the Wessex countryside, Northumbria\u2014which looks very different from the south of England\u2014a location for the Battle of Stamford Bridge and obviously the Battle for Hastings on a very particular incline that we needed to replicate. It wasn\u2019t easy, but Iceland has a remarkably varied landscape, and because it\u2019s such a small country, it\u2019s also not difficult to find spectacular scenery not far outside of Reykjav\u00edk. And then obviously supported by visual effects to enhance that look.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what they hope viewers around the world take from the epic production, Kaletsky notes, \u201cFor time immemorial, mostly male ambition, ego and hubris have created countries and also collapsed them. What is particularly powerful about this story is it\u2019s the tale of two men, neither of whom were destined for the throne and neither of whom, at least at the start of our narrative, wants the throne. One of them had to die, and England, as we know it, fell apart and was reborn. So, yes, there are many, many parallels. But it\u2019s also a universal story because of the family dynamics that it looks at. It plays out on a global scale, examining hubris and ambition. It also plays out on a domestic scale, examining marriage, the relationship between fathers and sons, and betrayal. You can take away what you want from it, depending a lot on, as a viewer, what you project onto these series.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Taylor and Kitty Kaletsky talk to World Screen Newsflash about collaborating on King & Conqueror, a historical epic starring James Norton and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":23377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,70],"tags":[1186,8665,7006,6165,7007,11338,1309,2835],"class_list":["post-23376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-features","category-top-stories","tag-james-norton","tag-king-conqueror","tag-kitty-kaletsky","tag-paramount-global-content-distribution","tag-rabbit-track-pictures","tag-robert-taylor","tag-rvk-studios","tag-the-development-partnership","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nMaking\u00a0King & Conqueror - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making\u00a0King & Conqueror - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Robert Taylor and Kitty Kaletsky talk to World Screen Newsflash about collaborating on King & Conqueror, a historical epic starring James Norton and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-09T12:30:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-10T13:46:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2025\/09\/KNC-Paramount-925.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/\",\"name\":\"Making\u00a0King & Conqueror - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-09T12:30:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-10T13:46:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/making-king-conqueror\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Making\u00a0King & Conqueror\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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