EXCLUSIVE: The 100 actor Sachin Sahel and Brady Roberts, co-creator of the Escaping Denver podcast, have teamed to develop a heist series.
Sideshow (working title) will see a young street performer recruited into a travelling sideshow, only to discover its circus performers use their unique skillsets to commit high-stakes heists.
Sahel is writing the pilot based on an idea he developed with Brady. The Canadian pair will be joined on the project by Toronto- and Calgary-based Titan1Studios, which is currently taking it out to the global market. The team are expecting casting and network attachments in coming months.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Titan1Studios to bring this wildly ambitious world to life,” Roberts and Sahel said in a joint statement. “At its core, Sideshow is a character study wrapped in adrenaline – a story about outsiders with extraordinary talents, finding community while walking the razor’s edge between right and wrong.”
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Sahel was most recently seen in CBC and The CW drama Wild Cards and has previously recurred in CW series The 100 over seven seasons. He’s currently starring in Blue Harbor Entertainment’s feature A Nice Indian Boy, which is in cinemas now.
Roberts, an independent wrestling star and podcast creator, created Escaping Denver with Rogue Panda Pictures’ Mike Howorun and was part of the team developing it as a TV series. The show, which explores bizarre and outlandish conspiracy theories surrounding Denver International Airport, was Corus Entertainment’s first scripted podcast and launched its fourth season last fall.
Titan1, meawhile, is currently in development on the likes of Breaking Point from writer Abdul Malik, which recently was selected for the Alberta Media Fund – Script Development Grant and the CMG’s Producing for Radicalized Canadians Fund. Also in the works are an adaptation of comic series Zomben with Rideback Entertainment and Season 3 of animated comedy The Mutumbilas.
The company, which began life as a comic books and graphic novels publisher and branded content business, launched its TV and film arm three years ago.
Titan1 VP Wes Ambrecht said Sideshow was a “rip-roaring new way into the heist genre that mixes high stakes missions with complicated character dynamics in a setting that every inner child longs to know more about, the circus.”
Sahel is repped by Red Management and Brave Artists Management. Roberts is repped by Integral Artists.