It is a measure of the gamble being taken by Sky with its latest drama epic, Fortitude, that the series, starring Stanley Tucci and Sofie Gråbøl, is said to have cost more than the annual budget of the Sky Arts channel.
The Arctic circle murder mystery, which co-stars Michael Gambon, Christopher Eccleston and Call The Midwife’s Jessica Raine, is the broadcaster’s biggest play yet in its attempt to persuade viewers that it can match the best of what US TV, such as Game of Thrones producer HBO, has to offer.
The opening episode of the 12-part drama, which cost an estimated £25m to bring to the screen and begins on Sky Atlantic in January, is relentlessly unsettling and claustrophobic, a blizzard (literally) of intrigue, infidelity, corruption and murder.
If its clearest ancestor is David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, which will return for a new series in 2016, Fortitude also reflects a burgeoning appetite among viewers for darker, more complex narratives.
It is a vogue that can be traced to 2011’s Danish drama hit The Killing (which also stars Gråbøl) through to ITV’s Broadchurch, back for a second series in the new year.
Patrick Spence, executive producer of Fortitude, said: “There is an appetite among worldwide audiences for anti-heroes and more complicated characters and stories, worlds that seem a little bit alien and less easy to relate to.
“Could I have sold Fortitude to a British broadcaster five years ago? I don’t think I could have done.”
Set in a Icelandic town where the residents are outnumbered three to one by polar bears – hence a legal requirement to carry a gun at all times – Fortitude is fictionalised yet heavily researched, said Spence.
It is a town at a tipping point, and not just because the governor, played by Gråbøl, is overseeing its difficult transition from mining town to high end tourist resort. A violent death brings an outsider to town, a US detective played by Tucci, in the sort of role filled by Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks.
Fortitude is the latest incarnation of Sky’s £600m push into UK production, an attempt to broaden its appeal beyond sport, movies and bought-in US shows such as Modern Family and Mad Men.
The satellite broadcaster’s traditional dominance in these areas has been weakened by BT’s entry into the sports rights market, buying up live Premier League matches and exclusive Champions League rights, and video-on-demand rivals such as Netflix, maker of Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards.
Sky has also placed big bets on Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio’s 13-part real time medical drama Critical, starring Lennie James, with a sequel to The Tunnel, its acclaimed adaptation of Scandinavian drama hit The Bridge, also said to be in the pipeline.
Fortitude’s author Simon Donald, who wrote Channel 4’s Mark Strong drama Low Winter Sun, since remade for US broadcaster AMC, is now working on a second series, although it has not yet been commissioned.
Game of Thrones star Richard Dormer, who plays sheriff Dan Anderssen, said: “I think the world Simon [Donald] has created is unique. It’s got so many layers, which is unusual for a lot of TV, and really digs down into each individual, some of whom are driven by quite dark impulses. You get sent scripts – crime dramas – where you kind of know what’s going to happen. Something like this takes you totally by surprise.”
Sky’s director of entertainment channels, Stuart Murphy, said Fortitude was its most ambitious drama to date.
Although it was commissioned before Sky’s buyout of its sister companies in Germany and Italy, creating a pay-TV giant with 20 million subscribers, Murphy said it was “just the type of thing you can expect to see from pan-European Sky”.
Initially a co-production with Starz, the US cable network which has partnered the BBC on shows such as BBC1’s The Missing, the US broadcaster dropped out over scheduling issues, replaced by another US partner, Pivot.
Sky drama senior commissioning editor Cameron Roach said: “Starz was really focusing on the autumn schedule and it became apparent we wouldn’t hit those transmission dates. We thought it was better to aim for January. If we are investing this amount of money into a show we wanted to get it right.”
Not that the production was without its problems, struck by freak weather conditions on the east coast of Iceland where much of it was filmed (along with a 48,000sq ft (4,500 sq metre) converted warehouse in Middlesex).
“For the first time since records began there was no snow on the ground,” said Spence.
“It was like a curse, a sick joke. We had to either bring snow down from the mountain, which is quite hard work, or fly it in from London where they make fake snow. We became the world’s largest buyer of fake snow.
“But when you choose to shoot in isolated extreme areas like that, you are taking a risk.”
