Battle ready
Stars James Norton and Emily Beecham, director Baltasar Kormákur and executive producer Kitty Kaletsky recall their epic effort to bring the Battle of Hastings to television in King & Conqueror – and reveal why there’s more to this historical story than its central protagonists. During the development of King & Conqueror, James Norton was waiting for his Armageddon moment. In 1998, Armageddon and Deep Impact were released in cinemas within weeks of each other, both imagining gigantic meteorites bound for Earth, with humanity racing against time to prevent destruction. King & Conqueror tells the story of Harold of Wessex, William of Normandy and the historical events building up to the feted Battle of Hastings in 1066 – and Norton couldn’t believe it had never been dramatised for television. Through planning and then production, he kept looking over his shoulder, anticipating that a rival project might emerge at any moment. “It was like, how are we the only ones having this idea right now?’” he tells DQ. “We did seem to be the only ones, and we followed it through.” Approximately seven years in the making, King & Conqueror now debuts on the BBC in the UK after an international coproduction led by Norton and Kitty Kaletsky’s Rabbit Track Pictures was pieced together to make the series. They had first been approached with the idea for the series by writer Michael Robert Johnson, and then built a coalition that included CBS Studios, RVK Studios, The Development Partnership and Shepherd Content. The … Continue reading Battle ready
