Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow TV adaptation lands International Emmy nomination

A TV show based directly on the gameplay of 25-year-old board game The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow has landed an International Emmy nomination.

Season two of Canal+’s Loups-Garous has been nominated in the Non-Scripted Entertainment category at the iconic awards, which celebrate excellence in television programming initially produced and aired outside of the US.

Loups-Garous attracted more than two million viewers for its launch in 2024 – the best ever launch for a new Canal+ creation at the time – with the Zygomatic-published social deduction game turned into a life-sized competition in which contestants take on the roles of villagers and werewolves.

Season one went on to draw a total of 15 million views according to the game’s publisher Asmodee – and that interest also translated to the physical game, with sales during the show’s launch week 150% higher than the same period a year earlier.

That success has led to international expansion for the show, with TV giant Banijay striking a multi-territory deal last year while describing Loups-Garous as “one of the hottest formats on the market”, and saying the agreement marked “a major coup for us at Banijay Entertainment”.

The deal allows Banijay to develop local versions across its operations spanning the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Nordics, Netherlands, Israel, Mexico, Brazil and India.

A German edition was also launched prior to that deal, with its first season passing five million streams. The show returned for its second season in Germany earlier this month.

The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow is far from the only tabletop title looking to make the jump to the screen, with publishing and distribution giant Asmodee particularly active in a push to expand its biggest properties beyond the hobby games market.

Netflix struck a deal last year to develop the first screen adaptations of Catan across scripted and unscripted television, film and animation, and followed that in February this year by picking up the exclusive global rights to Ticket to Ride covering film, TV and other formats. A Ticket to Ride feature film is the first project being developed under that agreement.

Fellow Asmodee title Exploding Kittens has already made the transition to the screen, with Netflix launching an adult animated series based on the hit card game in 2024.

Netflix first teamed up with Asmodee in 2022, when the board game giant worked in the other direction to create a trio of titles based on Netflix shows Squid Game, Stranger Things and Ozark. Those games have been followed by a Bridgerton-themed version of Love Letter.

The streaming giant also brought its own adaptation of Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow to the screen in 2024 with the French film Family Pack – which was released just 12 days after the first episode of Loups-Garous.

Other publishers exploring adaptations based on their games include CMYK, which launched US television game show The Perfect Line last year, inspired by Wolfgang Warsch’s Illusion. That show proved successful enough to return for a second season earlier this month.

CMYK CEO Alex Hague previously told BoardGameWire that the company had received dozens of approaches each year about developing a TV version of its million-selling party game Wavelength.

BoardGameWire revealed in 2023 that Kung Fu Panda animated series writers Ben Mekler and Chris Amick had prepared a movie pitch for Leder Games hit Root, although progress on that was interrupted by the writers’ strike. Mekler and Amick are now attached to Netflix’s Ticket to Ride feature film.

More hobby board game screen adaptations have been mooted over the years, but struggled to make it beyond the development stage.

The screen rights to the Terraforming Mars board game were bought by production company Cobalt Knight in 2022, while DreamWorks Animation picked up the movie rights to Mice and Mystics way back in 2018, although both are yet to materialise.