Hot Picks: Spiked: The Hunt For The Origin Of Covid-19

On Ten Productions certainly isn’t shying away from controversy with its first production. The debut feature from the firm set up by British producers Keith Linn and Alex Hocking wrestles with the thorny question of whether the devastating global pandemic ushered in by the spread of the Covid-19 virus originated in a lab or in the wild.

Two years in the making, and a linchpin of distributor Blue Ant Studios’ Mipcom slate, the attentiongrabbing doc tackles a global story in a way that strives to be accessible, without losing sight of the social, political, journalistic and scientific ramifications of what is happening.

Linn and Hocking, whose combined credits include Gold Rush, Gold Rush Alaska and Great American Railroad Journeys, have been careful to strike a balance. Eschewing the extreme ends of conspiracy theory, the duo, plus director David Herman (Vendetta; Osama Bin Laden: The Road To 9/11), have crafted a present-tense investigation that plays out like a detective thriller, with contributions from virologists with views from across the spectrum.

A heightened palette and a thriller element with touches of All The President’s Men and Indiana Jones, plus bold location shoots such as a Texan bat cave, steer it away from talking heads and shadowy conspiracy cliches.

Spiked: The Hunt For The Origin Of Covid-19 is a prime example of Blue Ant Studios’ intention to work with third-party indies as early as possible, to offer advice and nurture documentaries for the marketplace.

Global head of content and acquisitions strategy Lilla Hurst says she trusted On Ten to deliver on its “smart and popular” ethos with a film that evolves with every twist and turn of the story, including the US congressional hearings that took place during the latter half of production.

Hurst highlights the open-minded nature of a film that wrestles with questions of trust, truth and accountability. The global importance of the story should endear it to international buyers, she says, and she is confident that its editorial rigour will cool any nerves about handling a hot topic. While it is decidedly a specialist factual title, Hurst notes the film’s ability to straddle multiple sub-genres.

“We didn’t want this to sit squarely in either current affairs or science,” she says. “It moves away from the news headlines and takes the story somewhere else, with a blend of documentary, journalism and drama.”

She says the film will “spark a conversation” among viewers, who are invited to make up their own minds about what happened, and raises pertinent questions about how the world should prepare for the next pandemic.

“What it says about the world we live in is quite worrying,” she adds. “We have to be careful to have the checks and balances in place for how we’re living environmentally, and we can’t allow these arenas to operate without the right kind of scrutiny.”

Without a commissioning broadcaster, but with the film fully funded and made, Blue Ant Studios is launching the doc to buyers at Mipcom, where it will sit next to other high-profile factual offerings, such as recently acquired true-crime two-parter The Eunuch Maker, fronted by Marcel Theroux.