Following the success of ABC’s Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, Channel Nine has commissioned a miniseries on influential businessman Kerry Packer.
Also produced by John Edwards through Southern Star Entertainment, the series will follow the late Packer’s extraordinary rise after essentially putting one-day cricket on the map, when he created the World Series Cricket revolution.
The miniseries tells how a young Packer took on the cricket establishment to set up a rebel competition with the world’s best players, who abandoned their loyalty to their national teams to join the breakaway competition.
It will recount Packer’s court battles to get World Series Cricket up and running, the secret player signings, and the way he got around the ban on using Australia’s hallowed Test arenas.
The two-part miniseries will begin production next year.
The announcement follows the success of ABC's Paper Giants two-part miniseries which aired earlier this week. It was ABC1's highest-rating program this year.
ABC2 will screen the series – which stars Rob Carlton as Packer and Asher Keddie as magazine queen Ita Buttrose – again this Sunday (April 24) from 8.30pm.
What are your thoughts on the Kerry Packer miniseries?