Follows Success of Dateline NBC’s “The Thing About Pam” Podcast from 2019
- NBC News Studios and Blumhouse Television will co-produce a scripted series on the notorious Pam Hupp case, the first project out of the partnership that was announced earlier this year.
- Independent studio Blumhouse Television to develop and produce original scripted shows based on content from the series Dateline NBC.
- The murder of Betsy Faria in 2011 resulted in her husband Russ’s conviction, but he insisted he did not kill her. His conviction was later overturned. This brutal crime set off a chain of events that would expose a diabolical scheme.
- Dateline NBC would also become a character in this saga, and, as the leading source on true-crime storytelling, covered it many times, dating back to 2014, and also created a podcast in 2019, The Thing About Pam, reported by Keith Morrison.
- The Thing About Pam remains a top podcast in the iTunes store.
- “We have covered this story from all angles, including as an unwitting participant,” said Liz Cole, president of NBC News Studios and Executive Producer of Dateline. “Having been at the forefront of the true crime genre for so long, we know better than anyone that truth is often stranger than fiction, and with the twists and turns in this case, we saw a real opportunity to present it in a scripted format. We are so fortunate and pleased to be co-producing it with the brilliant storytellers at Blumhouse Television.”
- “We’ve delved into true crime before with unscripted. We’re not just looking for monsters under the bed, but also the things that keep us up at night so the chance to mine the incredibly rich trove of material from the Dateline archives to develop is a really unique and exciting opportunity for us.” said Marci Wiseman and Jeremy Gold co-presidents Blumhouse Television. “When we first came across The Thing About Pam, like thousands of others who’ve seen the Dateline episode and listened to the podcast, we were riveted. So when NBC presented this to us we jumped at making this our first scripted project with them.”
- Liz Cole will executive produce for NBC News Studios. Jason Blum, Marci Wiseman, Jeremy Gold will executive produce for Blumhouse Television. David Corvo is the senior executive producer of Dateline.
ABOUT NBC NEWS STUDIOS:
NBC News Studios is a new unit of NBC News that produces premium documentaries, docuseries, select scripted programming, and content for emerging platforms.
ABOUT BLUMHOUSE TELEVISION:
Blumhouse Television has earned critical acclaim and numerous honors for its dark, edgy fare including Emmy® awards for its productions of HBO’s The Normal Heart and The Jinx, as well as the prestigious Peabody award for The Jinx and the documentary How to Dance in Ohio. Blumhouse Television launched as an independent studio in 2017 with funding from ITV. Projects since the studio launch include Golden Globe® and Emmy® nominated HBO limited series Sharp Objects; Golden Globe®, Critics Choice® and Writers Guild® award nominated Showtime limited series The Loudest Voice; upcoming Showtime limited series The Good Lord Bird, from Ethan Hawke, James McBride, Mark Richard and Albert Hughes; and an eight-film anthology for Amazon Prime premiering 2020. The studio also produced The Purge on USA Network from writer/director/producer James DeMonaco and based on the popular film franchise; and the holiday themed anthology event series Into the Dark for Hulu. Blumhouse continues its true crime docuseries tradition with No One Saw a Thing on Sundance Channel, upcoming A Wilderness of Error for FX, and projects on Netflix and Oxygen, and continues to develop award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary films including their latest documentary A Secret Love produced with Ryan Murphy. Past documentary films include Writers Guild Award® winner Bathtubs Over Broadway and winner of the 2018 Sundance Audience Award This is Home. Blumhouse Television is the latest venture from Jason Blum, founder of Blumhouse Productions, which is widely-recognized for its pioneering model of producing high-quality micro-budget films including The Purge, Get Out, BlacKkKlansman and Halloween.
ABOUT NBC NEWS:
More Americans watch NBC News than any news organization in the world. Its leading and award-winning television news broadcasts include TODAY, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Meet the Press with Chuck Todd and Dateline NBC – all of which closed out 2019 at #1 in the key news demo for the fourth straight year. Additionally, NBC News produces Third Hour of TODAY, TODAY with Hoda and Jenna and Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist, as well as primetime specials and breaking news reports. The rapidly-growing NBC News Digital Group, including its streaming news service NBC News NOW, along with the SiriusXM TODAY Show Radio channel, provides continuous content to consumers wherever they are, whenever they want it. NBC News also operates NBC News Studios, a new unit producing premium documentaries, docuseries, select scripted programming, and content for emerging platforms, and the NBC NewsChannel affiliate news service.
NBC News is part of the NBCUniversal News Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast Corporation. For more information about NBCUniversal, please visit www.NBCUniversal.com.
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MEDIA INQUIRIES
Ali Zelenko
NBC News
ali.zelenko@nbcuni.com
917.797.8171
Milady Flores
Blumhouse Television
milady@blumhouse.com
310.528.5262