Hit Podcast Escaping Denver Is Heading for TV

Last year, Brady Roberts and Mike Howorun were just launching the second season of their smash-hit pop-culture-mystery podcast, Escaping Denver. The setup might be a little unlikely for a couple of guys working from Vancouver, considering how Denver the storyline is: Howorun narrates the adventures of two characters, Noah and Sara (voiced by Roberts and Supergirl's Greta Carew-Johns), who wake up in the depths of Denver International Airport and delve into all the weird and wonderful myths that have surrounded DIA since its construction, not to mention conjure some of their own.

And now the podcast is about to hit the small screen: It was recently licensed for television.

“We’ve been shopping it around for a little bit,” says Roberts. The podcast was hitting some important numbers — more than 1.5 million downloads and counting for the first season, “so we were looking for the right partner.” That partner turned out to be a Toronto company called Raven Banner Entertainment, which does a lot of work in the “horror-thriller-fun-genre stuff,” Roberts says.

“We’ve actually been working with them for about six months,” he adds, “and we’re announcing now because we’re done with all the pitch packaging and starting to shop it to networks and streamers.”

Given the state of TV today, Roberts and Howorun agree that they’re open to whatever outlet is interested in Escaping Denver, but they think it would do best on a streaming service. “It just seems to fit better,” explains Howorun. “Our content doesn’t follow traditional narrative. Having to put in ad beats changes the structure of the story. If you’re coming back from commercial and having to remind viewers that we left off being chased by a chupacabra, that’s a different mode of storytelling than just being in the moment.”
Fans of the podcast needn’t worry that the addition of a TV presence will in some way degrade the audio-only version that they’ve come to love. “We’re still on track for our five-season arc,” says Howorun. “We’re amping things up season by season; things will get a little more ludicrous, a little more crazy as we dive deeper beneath Denver International Airport.”

In fact, the only change that fans will see is a positive one. “We’ll be coming out weekly this season,” Howorun promises. “It’s why there was a larger gap between the seasons. We wanted to have everything done by the time it premieres so we can be sure to keep on that schedule.”

Details on the upcoming season of Escaping Denver are being kept under wraps for now, other than an estimated release date in late September. But a few guest stars for season three have been announced, including Sachin Sahel (The 100), Paul Lazenby (Doomsday from Superman & Lois) and Chelsea Green and Lance Storm (both from the WWE).

While the podcast’s storyline will continue to focus on Noah and Sara, the TV production won’t just regurgitate the same tale. “We always said from the onset of this addition of the TV show that we didn’t want to punish our existing podcast audience,” Howorun insists. “We wanted to reward fans of the podcast with a more fulfilling experience, but didn’t want to tell them the exact same story. We wanted the two stories to work in tandem.”

Howorun beams as he talks about the setup for the TV narrative: “It’s going to focus on a motley crew of fans of the podcast from around North America — this diverse group of Goonies who break into Denver International Airport to get to the facility that Noah and Sarah have been trapped in. They actually use the podcast as one of their many resources to dive into the conspiracy theories surrounding [DIA]. If you’re a listener of the podcast, wow, you’re going to find Easter eggs all over the place. But at the same time, you don’t need the podcast in order to understand what you’ll see on TV.” Rather, each storyline will serve as the other’s bonus content.

The turn to TV will be a very different experience for Roberts and Howorun on a production level, as well. “We come from a film background,” says Howorun. “Our production partners are always great in telling us, 'Hey, this scene is great visually, but how do you plan to do it in the audio style?' It’s been this wonderful learning experience. I think we’ve definitely found our rhythm.”

So much so that Howorun is even pushing for a stage adaptation of the show, as well — taking Escaping Denver to theaters in major cities, doing what amounts to an old-time radio production on stage. “Brady and Matthew are burdened by how often I bring it up,” laughs Howorun. “We’d love to do that. At some point, that will come from us if everyone will indulge me.”

When last we talked with Roberts and Howorun, despite the popularity of Escaping Denver, neither had yet visited either the Mile High City or DIA itself. That’s since changed: Both were guests at FAN EXPO Denver last year. “We got to meet a lot of our Denver fans, which was fantastic,” says Howorun. They also got to see DIA as they passed through on their inbound and outbound flights — but didn’t get a tour, as they wanted.

“They’ve since reached out on Instagram, and we’re trying to plan some sort of tour. They’ve offered to show us at least part of the facility,” Howorun says with a sly smile. “As you might imagine…we’re incredibly skeptical. It seems like the world’s most obvious trap.”

Escaping Denver is launching the third season of its podcast in late September and will be coming to TV screens in the near future.