Discovery developing another scripted series, North and South

Discovery has continued its move into the drama space and is developing a new version of US Civil War drama North and South.

Lionsgate will coproduce the project with Discovery and it is expected to run as a miniseries.

It will be based on the trilogy of North and South novels by John Jakes who is attached as an executive producer. The series will retell Jakes’ story of the Hazard family, northern factory owners from Pennsylvania, and the Main family, southern plantation owners.

No announcement was made regarding who will sell the series internationally, but Lionsgate has far greater experience of distributing drama than Discovery’s programme sales unit, which sells factual and fact-ent content.

The book trilogy has already spawned three miniseries, which aired on US broadcast net ABC in the 1908s and 1990s.