EXCLUSIVE: Idris Elba is narrating and exec producing a Nat Geo series about people of color who fought during World War Two. Nat Geo’s Tom McDonald has also unveiled shows on the FBI and a groundbreaking new DNA project being used to identify John and Jane Does across America, as he says he wants to cement the network’s reputation as a “brand of record.”
Produced by October Films and Elba’s Green Door Pictures, The Color of Victory: Heroes of WW2 [working title] will see the Luther star focus on three unsung heroes per episode who have previously not been given the spotlight via premium dramatization, character portraits and archive. Elba, whose grandfather served in World War Two, will highlight roles played in Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor and D-Day, as he reveals how the war experiences of people of color directly inspired post-war movements for freedom that swept the globe.
McDonald said October pitched him the project by showing him World War Two photos and asking “What do you think is missing from these pictures?”
“The answer of course was people of color and I realized I didn’t know any stories about them from World War Two,” he told Deadline. “So this felt like a genuinely fresh and original way into a perennial subject.”
McDonald last commissioned Elba when he was at the BBC for 2013’s King of Speed and he credited him for bringing “fresh eyes” and a “personal connection,” while comparing the series in scope to Nat Geo Emmy-winner 9/11: One Day in America.
Meanwhile, McDonald is seeking the next big Nat Geo franchise with Inside the FBI, which will begin by exploring the 1970s.
Another October Films series, it will feature in-depth access to agents at the heart of cases including Watergate and internal corruption.
“This was a decade of serial killers, cultists and headline-grabbing stories,” said McDonald. “There have been plenty of shows about the 70s but none from the perspective of an FBI agent, many of whom are talking for the first time about cases audiences are familiar with.”
October brought the show “fully formed with access” to McDonald and conversations have already started about further seasons focusing on different decades. “With success could come the 1980s, and then the soundtrack changes, the vision changes, and you can adjust to the decade itself,” added McDonald.
Finally, the Executive Vice President, Global Factual/Unscripted Content has commissioned Waking the Dead [working title] from the UK’s Long Lost Family producer Wall to Wall. The show follows the work of the DNA Doe Project, an investigative genetic genealogy group who are helping identify John and Jane Does from around the nation. Focusing on one case per episode, Waking the Dead will chart investigations as they move through DNA extraction and painstaking genetic investigation to discovery of the person’s identity and story.
“The idea behind this is that all of us deserve a name and this show restores a name to people,” added McDonald. “We have allowed for burials to happen. It feels profoundly important.”
“Brand of record”
While they focus on contrasting subject matter, McDonald said the slate – one of his first since starting in post around a year ago – is tied together through history and a desire to unearth new information.
“I have an aspiration that we are the brand of record telling these stories, recording testimony and unearthing incredible archive that will have value in years to come, serving as a historical document,” he said, adding that Nat Geo is not unlike his former employer the BBC in being “very very trusted.”
While McDonald’s major greenlights have so far been outside Nat Geo’s natural history, travel and adventure wheelhouse, he said he is still committed to these genres but is “broadening.”
McDonald acknowledged financing difficulties in a “turbulent” landscape and said his strategy is about “deploying our budget in different ways.”
“I’m probably spending less on travel and adventure, taking fewer bets,” he added. “We’re not a volume player and it’s not about making more. This is about being judicious in what we’re making and having ‘defining’ pieces.”
McDonald told Broadcast Magazine earlier this year that Nat Geo had come out of owner Disney’s round of 7,000 layoffs in an “extremely robust position.”
He is open to more first-look deals such as those inked recently with Chris Hemsworth and Ben Grayson’s Wild State, and Trafficked producer Muck Media.