Amazon Studios announced today that they’d be reviving the Eco-Challenge format for filming in 2019, with Mark Burnett serving as executive producer, and Bear Grylls as host.
Bear Grylls is set to host the show / Photo Credit: JHMH/FAMOUS
Eco-Challenge 2019 will see a whole bunch of teams, made up of four competitors, go on the “toughest global outdoor-multi-sport endurance race on Earth”, from MGM Television alongside Burnett.
Over 10 episodes, viewers will get to watch the teams go up against one another in one of the harshest competitions the world has ever seen. If one member of the team quits, the entire team is disqualified. Teams are also banned from being made up entirely of one gender.
No location has yet been given for the filming – which starts in 2019 – but we’re promised we’ll get that information before the end of the year.
Burnett, Chairman of MGM Worldwide Television Group and the show’s EP, commented: “I owe so much to Eco-Challenge. I came to the competition after I spent a few years competing professionally in expedition competitions.
“I went on to produce Eco-Challenge for a decade. It started my entire TV career and afforded me my first Emmy. I’ve been asked one question over and over. When is it coming back? Now it is. With Bear Grylls at the helm and the Amazon Prime Video team delivering it to a worldwide audience, we will make an amazing team, and the audience will see that this little race eats Ironmen for breakfast.”
Head of Amazon Studios, Jennifer Salke added: “Mark Burnett and Bear Grylls are a dream pairing when it comes to the world of ultimate survival. The stakes and the emotions will run high for the teams on Eco-Challenge 2019.
“Our Prime Video audience is in for a high-octane edge-of-your-seat experience as these fierce competitors find their limits and are asked to push beyond them in an adventure unlike any other.”
“Eco-Challenge is the ultimate survival-adventure race, against the elements, against the clock, and against some of the greatest extreme athletes the world has ever seen,” said Grylls. “Amazon Studios have such incredible global reach and the ability to unite so any countries and territories around this race, that shows human endeavour at its most powerful.”
Grylls will also work as an executive producer alongside Burnett, as well as MGM Television’s Lisa Hennessy, and Bear Grylls Ventures’ own Delbert Shoopman. Burnett’s race course design experts Scott Flavelle and Kevin Hodder are also making a return to the series.
Eco-Challenge 2019 films next year, with an expected premiere date on Amazon Prime Video at some point in 2020.
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