Season 3 of Hunted returns on 12 August with a new look, a new chief, and a twist that adds “a whole other layer” to the game.
Director of content at Endemol Shine Australia Marty Benson and head of creative production and entertainment at Paramount ANZ Tamara Simoneau told Mediaweek the hook for this season was to make the contestants “real” fugitives on the run.
The newest season opens with a (staged) bank robbery and sees the fugitive teams initially split in half: a team of nine “robbers” and a team of nine “planners”.
The robbers will together plot the grand bank heist and creep out into the night to steal from a bank in Ballarat in the early hours of the morning. Meanwhile the “planners” plan the all-important getaway.
The Ballarat Bank holds $1 million, with the entire loot up for grabs. Whatever the Fugitives can steal, they will divide amongst themselves. If they make it to the extraction point, that will be their prize money.
“The inspiration for the new twist came from our UK counterparts, a show called The Heist, which is shot in a similar way but the format is a bit different,” Benson said.
“That show starts with a staged bank robbery, and we thought it would be a great way to add another dimension to Hunted and actually make our contestants be actual fugitives and on the run.”
“Before they were just on the run for the game, now they’re on the run because they break the law,” Simoneau said.
Reece Dewar OAM is Hunted’s newly appointed chief, and brings to the investigation a wealth of varied tactical experience from a 30-year career.
Not only will he be responsible for the coordination of the ground operation, but also the HQ level planning and coordination of assets to effect fugitive capture.
“The challenge will be not getting fixed on fugitive pairs but looking holistically at the vulnerability of each fugitive pair and exploiting those weaknesses,” he said.
“I think viewers will be drawn into the scenario, where this time they will pick a side, fugitive or hunter. I know which team I’ll be backing.”
Benson called Hunted the “most exciting show on television” and he thinks it’s “certainly the most exciting show to make.”
“We’re using AI facial recognition, we’re using infrared drones at night and we’ve even got police dogs. It’s just mental,” he said.
The Victorian Police also helped set up the bank for the fake robbery, and Simoneau says this was done because “the bank had to be set up as real as possible.”
“They even gave us guidance on how the specific safe holding the money should be, where it should be and how hard it should be to crack into. It’s really the ultimate game of cat and mouse.”
Dewar agreed: “I think Hunted gives viewers a look into a world that they know exists but don’t understand. At the end of the day, it is a game but the processes and the way the operation unfolds are as real as we can make it.”
Hunted season 3 premieres on 12 August at 7:30pm on 10 and 10 Play.