Also headed by Carrie-Anne Moss, the series premieres two episodes in Toronto before global launch On the heels of global sensation “Heated Rivalry,” Canadian streamer Crave is bringing witchy back with “Yaga,” writer and showrunner Kat Sandler’s horror mystery series in which the ancient lore of Baba Yaga haunts the search for a missing local in a small coastal town. Greenlit in spring 2025, “Yaga” gained global buzz earlier this year with the news that “Heated Rivalry” star Hudson Williams would topline alongside Carrie-Anne Moss (“The Matrix”) and Noah Reid (“Schitt’s Creek”) and Clark Backo (“Letterkenny”). The first two half-hour episodes premiere in the Toronto film festival’s Primetime program this week followed by the eight-part series’ global premiere in October.
Shot earlier this year over 32 days on location on Vancouver Island, the story follows a PI (Reid) who partners with a local detective (Backo) to investigate the disappearance of the heir to a major fishery (Williams). An enigmatic and alluring university professor (Moss) with a thing for younger men is among the local suspects, who begin to seem connected. Sandler was read folk tales as a child and grew up watching the popular anti-heroes of early HBO dramas.
She co-founded a theater company for people who don’t like theater and wrote, produced, and directed more than 20 plays that emulate TV with lots of sex, violence and snappy dialogue. We don’t often get to watch women behaving badly in a way that we can enjoy and root for.” Her fascination with Baba Yaga, a supernatural female character from Slavic folklore that usually is portrayed as a witchy crone, inspired her hit 2019 stage play “Yaga,” from which the series is adapted. Aside from the premiere, Sandler, who grew up in Toronto, is serving as a mentor for TIFF: The Market’s new Series Creators’ Lab, a four-day program for eight Canadian series-creator teams from under-represented communities, focusing on moving premium TV IP toward production and global distribution.
We did vampires for so long, now the witches are due for a resurgence.” “Yaga” is produced by Blink49 Studios and Front Street Media. Sphere Abacus has sold “Yaga” to AMC Global Media for AMC+ in the U.S., Sky in the UK and Ireland, Sky in New Zealand, HBO Max in Europe, and Foxtel Group in Australia. It is shopping the series as eight half-hours, as well as four hour-length episodes.
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