Marking the company’s first foray into the acquisition of scripted formats, Something Special, Seoul-based international Format agency has announced that they have optioned the award-winning scripted series Hostages, from Israel’s Armoza Formats.

Hostages is the highly acclaimed Israeli crime-thriller that follows a renowned female surgeon about to perform a routine operation on the President when her family is taken hostage. She is ordered to sabotage the procedure and kill the President – or her family will die. As we follow one woman’s battle to save both her family and the President, we are taken on an emotional journey where all are fighting for survival, and nothing is as it seems. The series was created by Rotem Shamir, Omri Givon, and Yezira Ivrit.

The series originally aired on Channel 10 in Israel in 2013 and has since been adapted in India on Hotstar and in the US on CBS. The finished tapes of the original series have traveled globally including in the UK/BBC4, Germany/RTL Crime, France/Canal+, Brazil/Globosat, Australia/SBS, Ukraine.

Hostages has won the Monte Carlo Television Nymph Award for Best International Drama Series & and the leading actress, Ayelet Zurer, won the Golden Nymph for Outstanding Actress in a TV Drama Series in 2014. The original series was also a nominee in the 27th FIPA Awards and the Banff Rockie Awards, and Ayelet Zurer won the Best Actress award in the Israeli TV Academy Awards. The U.S. version received a People’s Choice Award nomination for Favorite New Television Drama.

Something Special’s Jin Woo Hwang, President & EP, and InSoon Kim, EVP & Head of Content stated: “We are very excited to work with the Armoza Formats team to bring a local version of Hostages to Korea and are finalizing the production details very soon. This is Something Special’s first scripted format acquisition and we are looking forward to expanding into the scripted space as our company goes into our fourth year.”

Adi Brukner, Sales Executive of Asia, Africa, Southern Europe, Benelux, Canada, and MEA, “We are thrilled that Something Special has chosen our award-winning format Hostages as their first scripted adaptation for the Korean market. Adding to the format’s global success, this new commission is further proof that a good story can travel anywhere.”