Amazon-owned streaming platform MGM+ has greenlit a series based on acclaimed scripted podcast American Hostage. The series will star Jon Hamm (Mad Men), who also featured as the lead in the 2022 podcast. The commission is described as an anthology series, but there are no details yet where the franchise might go next.
Set in the 1970s, American Hostage is described as a “psychological thriller that tells the harrowing true story of Fred Heckman, a beloved Indianapolis radio reporter who is thrust into the middle of a life-or-death crisis when hostage-taker Tony Kiritsis demands to be interviewed on his radio news programme.”
Production will begin in Canada during the autumn, with co-creators Shawn Ryan and Eileen Myers lined up as executive producers – alongside Hamm. Sony Pictures Television (SPT) will distribute the series internationally.
Michael Wright, head of MGM+, said: “The combination of prolific producers Shawn Ryan and Eileen Myers, a singular talent like Jon Hamm, and our partners at Sony Pictures Television, is a match made in MGM+ heaven. This is a fascinating story about real people engaged in a real-time life-or-death struggle to keep a desperate hostage situation from spinning out of control, and I can’t think of a more gifted actor on whom to centre the story than Jon.”
SPT Studios president Katherine Pope added: “An exploration of quiet heroism, American Hostage shines a light on our culture, revealing truths that still resonate.”
The podcast came out of the Criminal Content stable. Criminal Content describes itself as “a media company specialising in premium streaming podcasts and immersive storytelling”. Shawn Christensen and Gabriel Mason of Criminal Content are also named as exec producers on the TV adaptation.
