“Heated Rivalry” breakout star Hudson Williams has landed his next television role as one of the leads of the half-hour drama series “Yaga.”
Production is already underway on the series, which will reunite Williams with “Heated Rivalry” streaming service Crave. “Yaga” will be the Canadian streamer’s first half-hour original drama series. In addition to Williams, its cast includes Carrie-Anne Moss (“The Matrix”), Noah Reid (“Schitt’s Creek”) and Clark Backo (“Letterkenny”).
Created and showrun by Kat Sandler and based on her own play, “Yaga” promises to reimagine the myth of the Baba Yaga as a contemporary mystery thriller. It follows Rapp (Reid), a private investigator who arrives in a small coastal town intent on investigating the disappearance of the young heir to a powerful fishery (Williams).
As a result of his investigation, Reid’s private detective finds himself not only at odds with a local detective (Backo) and a charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men (Moss), but also at the center of an intricate web of suspects, secret lives and ancient magic.
Front Street Pictures, Blink49 and Charles Cooper are onboard as producers in partnership with Crave. David Frazee and Rachel Talalay will serve as co-directors. Moss, Mackenzie Donaldson and Andrew Miller are attached as executive producers.
“Featuring a truly exceptional cast, this series marks another exciting collaboration with Blink49 Studios,” Justin Stockman, Vice President of Content Development and Programming at Bell Media said in a statement Wednesday. “We’re thrilled to bring Kat Sandler’s bold vision to Crave with this first-ever half-hour drama, and to continue setting the bar for genre-bending, unexpected storytelling.”
” ‘Yaga’ has evolved from myth to stage to my first greenlit series, reclaiming the wicked witch and reshaping her as an incendiary feminist antihero for our time,” Sandler added. “It reflects the kind of storytelling I love: propulsive, accessible, dark, funny, and unapologetically bold. I’m incredibly excited to bring Crave’s first-ever half-hour drama to life alongside longtime collaborator Mackenzie Donaldson, Front Street Pictures, Blink49 and Bell Media.”
” ‘Yaga’ is the kind of ambitious, genre-smashing storytelling we’re proud to support,” Donaldson, Vice President of Scripted Television at Blink49 Studios, said in a separate statement. “Bringing Kat Sandler’s singular and fearless voice to the screen for the first time is a thrill. This is a story that is truly unique and unmistakably hers — fresh, contemporary reimagining of a classic myth brought to life by an exceptional cast and creative collaborators.”
The news of Williams’ casting in “Yaga” comes just one day after his “Heated Rivalry” co-star Connor Storrie was revealed to be in talks to join the cast of “Peaked,” a new A24 comedy also starring Molly Gordon, Allie Levitan, Emma Mackey, Laura Dern, Simone Ashley, Levon Hawke, Mitra Jouhari and Gabby Windey. Gordon is set to direct the film, which she co-wrote with Levitan. It is slated to start filming this month.
