When ‘Married At First Sight’ Collides Head First With ‘Survivor’, The Result Is ‘Stranded On Honeymoon Island’

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s strand in which, each fortnight, we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

As MIPCOM kicks off, we shine a spotlight this week on a Married at First Sight versus Survivor hybrid in Stranded on Honeymoon Island, which was birthed in Denmark but landed first in Belgium before setting sail around the world. The series sees fledgling couples dropped on a remote island and left to fend for themselves. What’s not to like? The BBC and Channel 7, amongst others, clearly see the potential, and Stranded‘s sales team will be looking to make some noise in Cannes this week.

Name: Stranded on Honeymoon Island
Country: Denmark
Network: VTM Belgium
Producer: Snowman Productions
For fans of: Married at First Sight, Survivor
Distributor: Seven.One Studios International

If you thought Married at First Sight was high octane, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Set to dominate formats chatter at this week’s MIPCOM, Stranded on Honeymoon Island is the product of a simple thought from Danish formats guru Rasmus Steentoft and his team at Sno wman Productions: “What would happen if we took the success of Married at First Sight and combined it with Survivor?,” Steentoft tells us in the week leading up to the Cannes confab.

The show emerged during a pandemic brainstorm when producers were wondering when they would next be able to get ideas on screen. In Stranded on Honeymoon Island, which has just struck its biggest deal so far by selling to the BBC, six couples are matched by experts. Immediately after committing themselves to each other in an intimate ceremony, they are dramatically abandoned in an idyllic isolation for the adventure of a lifetime. The fledgling relationships are subsequently put to the test as the couples live together and fend for themselves with few resources.

“To begin with we thought this would never work but sometimes you just cannot let go of the idea,” Steentoft says. “So we came up with the