Red Planet Pictures and WAG Entertainment owner, Asacha Media Group, has teamed with Assaad Bouab (Call My Agent!, Bad Sisters), and writer and director Benjamin Ross (The Frankenstein Chronicles, Poppy Shakespeare, RKO281, The Young Poisoner’s Handbook) on The Voyager (wt).
Currently in development, The Voyager is the story of legendary Medieval explorer Ibn Battuta and will be the first drama to bring this tale to the screen.
Adventurer, writer and philosopher, Battuta went on pilgrimage to Mecca and ended up travelling for over twenty years and over 76000 miles across Africa, India and Eurasia, more than anyone in pre-modern history – including Marco Polo. He logged his experiences of the people, places and cultures he encountered along the way, writing one of the world’s earliest and most famous travelogues, The Rilah, and earning himself legendary status in history.
Having been fascinated by Battuta’s legacy as a hugely significant figure in his native Morocco, Bouab will play the explorer and is an Executive Producer on this epic series which he is developing with Asacha and Ross.
Bouab said: “Ibn Battuta is one of the greatest explorers of all time and I would have loved to have had his life. For many years, his name was associated with a boat in my mind – the boat that I and my family used to travel on between Tangier and Algeciras in Spain, that marked the beginning of my discovery of a new world. I now have the chance to live in his shoes for a while. I’m very excited to start working on the series with Benjamin Ross and the Asacha Media Group, and to discover what Ibn Battuta learned during his trips – what he has seen, accomplished, regretted, achieved, who he has loved, lost and fought.”
Ross, who has recently written and directed a new series about the life of another major historical figure for an international SVOD and is show-running The Voyager added: “Ibn Battuta’s ‘Rilah’ is one of the most fascinating documents in history and a privileged window onto a vanished world. In our hands it’s also the scaffold for an epic, multi-series adventure of intrigue, ambition, global politics, romance, and spiritual quest that will entertain and enthral audiences around the world.”
Maria Ishak, Head of International Content & Co-Productions at Asacha Media commented: “In such a saturated market, it’s hard to find distinctive and important stories to tell, this one is both, and I am thrilled to be working with Ben and Assaad in telling it. This project further cements our our place as one of the most exciting and successful destinations for talent and original and established IP.”
Jon Creamer
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