Seth Rogen at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in France, May 14.Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
Bell Media’s Crave is building on the momentum of the runaway success of Heated Rivalry in an unexpected way – with a reboot of a classic piece of Cancon about a runaway dog.
A live-action reimagining of The Littlest Hobo, the TV series about an empathetic and peripatetic German Shepherd that originally aired from 1979 to 1985 on CTV, is the first scripted project to come out a partnership between Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Point Grey Pictures, Lionsgate Canada and the Canadian streaming service announced back in December, 2024.
It’s the most starry – and surprising – new show of a packed lineup of original and acquired content Bell Media is announcing Thursday as it pitches advertisers at its first annual upfront since Heated Rivalry became a smash.
The international impact of Jacob Tierney’s hockey drama hasn’t changed the path that the company is on – but rather given its leaders confidence that it’s on the right one already by “taking big swings,” according to Justin Stockman, vice-president of global content.
“We were pretty aggressively out there talking about how we wanted to make big global hits, and we wanted to work with the most talented Canadians and repatriate them,” says Stockman.
“Heated Rivalry just helped us prove our point in a very big way.”
“The Littlest Hobo was a foundational show of our childhood,” Rogen and Goldberg, most recently creators of the Emmy-winning Apple TV comedy The Studio, said in a statement.
“We are thrilled to have the honour of bringing it back for a new generation alongside our partners at Crave.”
The Littlest Hobo casting, production and premiere details will be announced at a later date.
CBC’s new TV lineup includes workplace comedy starring Samantha Bee, P.K. Subban hockey drama
On Thursday, Bell Media is also touting a more recent deal made with a repatriated Canadian: David Shore, the London, Ont.-born showrunner behind such American medical procedural hits as House and The Good Doctor.
Shore will be reunited with the actor Freddie Highmore, who starred in The Good Doctor, for a new Crave original crime drama called I’m Not Here to Hurt You. Produced by Blink49 Studios, it is Bell Media’s first is a joint commission with Sony Pictures Television.
Another original drama being announced is The Hidden Keys, an adaptation of Giller Prize-winning author André Alexis’s novel.
But Crave has had the most consistent success in scripted entertainment before Heated Rivalry in comedy – and the streamer is not pivoting away from that area.
Meatballs is a brand-new series inspired by the 1979 film comedy about a second-rate summer camp, which launched director Ivan Reitman’s career and showed Bill Murray could be a star.
Robbie G.K.Henry Wu/Supplied
A Crave-minted star Robbie G.K., who played Kip in Heated Rivalry, is set to lead the small-screen adaptation’s cast and bring his avid audience with him.
Bulges, meanwhile, is a series about a Hooters-style restaurant staffed by men, from Hamilton sketch troupe The Dessert.
And Salty, from Frantic Films, is a female buddy comedy about two millennial mermaids in the Maritimes who have to find love before their birthday or they turn into cuttlefish.
“We’re adding some new audiences with Meatballs and Salty,” says Carlyn Klebuc, general manager of original programming, who notes Crave has had male-skewing comedy nailed since Letterkenny.
Other newly announced Crave comedies include Cats in the Plateau, yet another show from Letterkenny creator Jared Keeso, about Montreal garbagemen who start a gang; I Can’t Save You, from Jennifer Podemski, Amber Daniels and Sherry Mckay, about a single mom from Winnipeg’s North End who stumbles into stand-up comedy; and Golden Mile, a workplace comedy about strip-mall security guards from Joyce Wong and Brian Keith Etheridge.
Comedies The Office Movers, Shoresy and Super Team Canada are all returning for new seasons (The Trades is not) – and the previously announced Slo Pitch (from Elliot Page’s PageBoy production) and I Kill the Bear (another Keeso show) will finally hit Crave later in 2026.
Another area where Bell Media is leaning into previous pre-Heated Rivalry success is with reality television.
Big Brother Canada, cancelled by Global after its 12th season in 2024, will return on CTV and Crave in the summer of 2027.
Crave has had great success finding efficiencies as it has catered to viewers in both official languages – and that is what has allowed it to resurrect Big Brother Canada. “Because our French colleagues produce Big Brother Célébrités, we have a Big Brother house,” says Stockman. “We could figure out a more sustainable production model.”
That model, too, is behind Advent Calendar, Crave’s upcoming English-language version of its French holiday-themed dating show, Le Calendrier de l’Avent. The original landed in the top five on Crave throughout its run last December and even attracted an avid English audience watching with subtitles.
Temptations Under the Sun, yet another English complement to a French-language reality show, will finally premiere this summer after being removed from the Crave schedule last winter a week before it was to stream. “Creatively we just needed more time to get the show right,” says Klebuc.
Crave shows announced on Thursday may not necessarily premiere in the next year: Yaga, Kat Sandler’s adaption of her folklore-inspired play first announced at the last Bell Media upfront, will hit Crave by end of 2026.
Crave is currently the fourth-biggest streaming service in Canada and Stockman says he believes it is poised to move into third place in the next year.
As for the HBO content found on the streamer in Canada, Stockman says Bell Media’s deal with Warner Brothers Discovery, which is in the process of being acquired by Paramount, is a “long-term one.”
“Crave remains the home of HBO and HBO Max programming in Canada for the foreseeable future,” he says.