Exciting New Ancient Rome TV Series Being Created By Vikings Director Michael Hirst
An upcoming historical tv series has been confirmed which will take viewers all the way back to Ancient Rome, to the city of Pompeii specifically.
Background Information
It has recently been confirmed that Amazon’s MGM studios will be creating a mini series set in the backdrop of Ancient Rome and this upcoming series will focus specifically around the destruction of Pompeii. This tragic event occurred during the year 79AD and the brutal eruption of Mount Vesuvius is one of the ancient worlds deadliest natural disasters and a fascinating point of focus for a series. This upcoming historical drama will be based on the book A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii and this book is very unique and different from any other historical novel that you may have previously read. The uniqueness of this novel comes from the fact that this book was written not by one singular author or even a collaboration of 2 or 3 authors, but a magnificent achievement composed by 6 individual writers, each of whom fleshed out the story with their own unique style and flare. The authors of this novel are as follows; Kate Quinn, Ben Kane, Stephanie Dray, Eliza Knight, Sophie Perinot, and Vicky Alvear. Of the above listed authors it is only the works of Ben Kane that I am familiar with and he is an absolutely amazing writer, with his series on Hannibal and Spartacus being 2 of the best historical fiction novels I have ever read. So I am definitely keen to watch any historical tv show based on a book which he has helped pen.
What Do We Know So Far?
PRODUCTION TEAM
Although there are no confirmed castings for A Day of Fire yet, we do have a good understanding of who will be the executive producers and showrunners of this upcoming series. One of the producers will be Horatio Hirst and he is a relatively new figure in Hollywood with this being his first writing credit. However, he does have some small acting roles to his name having previously featured in secondary roles in Vikings Valhalla and Billy the Kid, leading to the possibility that Horatio Hirst may also be starring in this new series about Pompeii as well. The second producer of this series is the legendary Michael Hirst, who is already an established veteran in the industry with historical hits like the Tudors, Vikings, Vikings Valhalla and Billy the Kid. It is definitely a great benefit to see someone with Michael Hirst’s experience onboard for this project and since A Day of Fire will only be a limited series it will mean that hopefully the show won’t have a large enough episode count to provide a lacklustre finale or conclusion, as is the case for many of Michael Hirst’s previous historical tv show endeavours. I know the following point is a bit off topic but I am pretty certain Horatio Hirst and Michael Hirst are related somehow, as there is no way it is just a coincidence that both of them share the same last name and all the projects Horatio has worked on so far have had Michael Hirst at the helm.
Additionally, Scott Free productions will also be assisting to help produce this tv series and there are some excellent and highly talented executive producers that work under this banner such as; Ridley Scott, Clayton Krueger, and Sharon Hughff. There is a strong possibility that we might get one of these talented directors onboard to help direct A Day of Fire and a historical mini series produced by Michael Hirst and directed by Ridley Scott, could be one of the best collaborations of all time and a pairing that the historical world could definitely get behind.
PLOT
A very simple overview of the plot for A day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii is that it tells a complex weave of stories about various characters living in the city of Pompeii and their individual daily lives all leading upto the the climactic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. This novel also goes into great detail about the brutal destruction the eruption of Mount Vesuvius would wreak upon the city and its inhabitants, completely altering the lives of the characters within the novel. This upcoming series will give an indepth look into how citizens in Ancient Rome and Pompeii functioned on a day to day basis and how one brutal and unfortunate event would change the Roman Empire and the lives of its citizens forever.
So to conclude, this article has shared everything we know so far about this upcoming Ancient Rome based historical tv show, such as the fact that this series will be based on the novel A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii. We have also discussed that the series will be produced and written by Michael Hirst and Horatio Hirst and that the historical drama will be a joint collaboration between Amazon’s MGM Studios and Ridley Scotts’ Scott Free Productions.
I really hope that Amazon does a better job with with this new show than they did with their previous foray into Ancient Roman history with Those About to Die, which was a very expensive but less than stellar series overall. Therefore, I am being optimistic and hoping that Amazon will learn from the mistakes they made in Those About to Die and make this new Pompeii based tv show a much better produced, written and directed historical epic overall.
Let me know in the comments below if you are excited for this upcoming Ancient Rome tv series and don’t forget to subscribe to HistorySpark to stay upto date with everything to do with historical movies and historical tv shows.