GameTV and Paramount+ in Canada have partnered to greenlight New Metric Media’s comedy miniseries Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story.

The 6 x 30-minute series, created and showrun by Anthony Q. Farrell (Run the Burbs), stars Toronto-born Shamier Anderson (John Wick: Chapter 4) as the Canadian runner who was disqualified and stripped of his 1988 Olympic gold medal after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

The series is inspired by the work and research of Canadian author and journalist Mary Ornsby and follows Johnson’s account of the doping scandal, taking a satirical look at the events surrounding the 100-metre race at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story is produced, with participation from Johnson, by Toronto’s New Metric Media in association with Anderson’s L.A.- and Toronto-based Bay Mills Studios, co-founded with his brother Stephan James. It is directed by R.T. Thorne (40 Acres) and Cory Bowles (Trailer Park Boys) and begins principal photography June 20 at Toronto’s Dark Slope Studios. New Metric Media is distributing the series internationally.

GameTV, owned by Toronto’s Anthem Sports & Entertainment, is the series’ commissioner and its exclusive linear broadcaster in Canada while Paramount+ in Canada is its sole streaming platform. The project was first announced at 2023’s Banff World Media Festival as part of Paramount+’s first Canadian development slate. Farrell, Thorne, Anderson, James and New Metric CEO Mark Montefiore are onboard as executive producers.

“Paramount+ is proud to have championed this project from the start, and this collaboration marks an exciting and innovative model for us — a streamer joining forces with a linear broadcaster to deliver compelling Canadian content to even broader audiences and providing another sustainable model for the Canadian production community,” said Vanessa Case, VP of content, Paramount+ and Pluto TV Canada, in a statement.

Photo by O’Shane Howard