Sky announces M. Son of the Century
April 5, 2022
Sky has announced M. Son of the Century, a new Sky Original drama series based on Antonio Scurati’s Premio Strega-winning and international bestselling novel that chronicles the birth of fascism in Italy and the rise to power of Duce Benito Mussolini.
The eight-part series from Sky Studios, produced by Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle Company, in collaboration with Pathé, will cover from the founding of Fasci Italiani in 1919 through to Mussolini’s infamous speech in parliament following the murder of socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti in 1925. The series will also provide viewers with an insight into Mussolini and his personal relationships, including with his wife Rachele, his lover Margherita Sarfatti and with other iconic figures from the time. Like the novel, the series will tell the history of a country that surrendered to dictatorship and the story of a man who was able to rise from his ashes time and again.
The drama is written by Stefano Bises (Gomorrah – The Series, The New Pope, ZeroZeroZero, Speravo de morì prima) in collaboration with Davide Serino (1992, 1993, The King, Exterior Night). The series will tell the events with historical accuracy, with every event, character, dialogue and speech documented or witnessed by multiple sources.
Mieli, CEO of The Apartment Pictures, said: “Making this series today has great value. In recent years we have witnessed the birth of new forms of populism, sovereignty and authoritarianism. Traces of the man who made the March on Rome a hundred years ago can be found in many figures of the times in which we live. Even more so now that Europe has once again become a theatre of war. ‘M’ recounts the perverse mechanisms of empathy and violence, of manipulation and modernity that swept Italy a century ago. And shortly afterwards the world. It is an extraordinarily contemporary tale, but also a journey into the boundless ambitions, seductive capacities, relationships and fears of a man who made a large part of the Italian people fall in love with him and then dragged them into an abyss. In which, in the end, he himself found death.”
Scurati said: “M depicts – for the first time from the inside – the rise of the fascist dictatorship and the sinister power of the dictator, Benito Mussolini. A theme of tragic relevance. I am happy that a series will extend the literary project. We need stories that awaken the passion for freedom. The struggle between democracy and dictatorship is not over”.
Filming will begin in 2023 and the series is set to be shown on Sky and streaming service NOW in all Sky markets across Europe. Fremantle will handle international sales. Since first published by Bompiani in 2018, Scurati’s novel ‘M. Son of the Century’ has been translated for publication into 46 countries, sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide, won the Premio Strega, Italy’s most prestigious literary award, and is published today by HarperCollins in the US.