Producers Joshua D. Maurer, Alixandre Witlin and David Stern originally acquired the rights to the story and first approached the BBC, who expressed strong interest. Soon afterwards, it was Maurer who then contacted his close friend and former boss at HBO, Colin Callender and his production company Playground Entertainment, based in London, to partner, and together they negotiated a deal with BBC2 and Starz for the development and production of the miniseries.