Thunder Bay Headed to TV
by Staff
(July 11, 2019 – Toronto, ON) Miranda de Pencier’s Northwood Entertainment has partnered with the producers of the Canadaland podcast Thunder Bay to develop the true crime podcast into a television drama series.
Northwood Entertainment will co-produce alongside Anishinaabe comedian, writer & podcaster Ryan McMahon, and journalist & Canadaland founder/publisher, Jesse Brown.
Hosted and co-written by McMahon, the podcast examines the systemic racism, corruption, and crime that runs rampant in Thunder Bay and the factors that make the city amongst the most dangerous for Indigenous youth in the world. The series plans to bring all of these issues to light examining not who killed nine Indigenous high school students, but what killed them. From this starting point, the series will move forward to explore the broader impact of colonialism and racism.
“The fact that a podcast like Thunder Bay has received more than a million downloads globally, makes it clear that the world is ready to hear about the complex and nuanced relationship between Indigenous and non Indigenous people,” said (pictured), co-writer and host of Thunder Bay. “We just scratched the surface of these stories through our podcast, the team at Northwood Entertainment will help us bring the complicated dance of colonialism to the screen.”
“On our podcast, Ryan only told a fraction of the shocking stories that we found in Thunder Bay,” said Jesse Brown, founder and publisher of Canadaland. “With Miranda’s excellent help, we will keep holding a mirror up to this troubled city, and to Canada itself. These stories cannot be told enough.”
“Thunder Bay is the most gut-wrenching, outrageous, shocking and important podcast I have ever experienced,” said Northwood Entertainment CEO Miranda de Pencier (pictured above). “I love my country, but it’s messed up. So working with Ryan and Jesse to turn their brilliant podcast into a dramatic series right now feels beyond insanely exciting. It feels vital.”
Thunder Bay executive producers are Miranda de Pencier, Ryan McMahon, and Jesse Brown, who are currently considering showrunners for the series. Northwood Entertainment and Canadaland will co-produce the series.
