Starz continues to look across the Atlantic to help bolster its series roster.
The premium outlet’s latest addition is The Listeners, a limited series starring Rebecca Hall. The acquisition comes on the heels of Starz picking up a series adaptation of Amadeus, starring Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany, earlier this month.
The Listeners is based on a novel by Jordan Tannahill, who adapted his book for the series. Janicza Bravo (Zola, The Bear) directed. The series aired on the BBC in late 2024, where it garnered critical acclaim.
Hall (Peter Hujar’s Day, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) plays Claire, a teacher who begins to hear a low hum that no one else around her seems to notice. The noise starts to upend her life and cause tension with her husband (Prasanna Puwanarajah) and daughter (Mia Tharia). “When she discovers that a student of hers, Kyle (Ollie West), can also hear the sound, the two strike up an unlikely and intimate friendship,” the show’s description reads. “Finding themselves increasingly isolated from their families, friends and colleagues, they fall in with a disparate group of neighbors, led by a charismatic couple, Jo (Gayle Rankin) and Omar (Amr Waked), who also claim they can hear what they call ‘The Hum’ — but rather than track down the source to stop it, believe it is a gift, heard only by a chosen few.”
“The Listeners pulls viewers in from the start with its unique mystery while provoking questions about how society treats and believes women’s experiences,” said Alison Hoffman, president Starz Networks. “We’re proud to bring this critically acclaimed project to the U.S. and expand our suite of premium programming for women with this riveting psychological thriller.”
Fremantle’s Element Pictures produced The Listeners. Tannahill and Bravo executive produce with Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Chelsea Morgan Hoffmann and Rachel Dargavel for Element Pictures, Rebecca Ferguson for the BBC, and Alice Birch. The series is produced by Ed King. Fremantle is also handling global sales of the series.
