SCI FI Channel premiered the original two-part, four-hour fantasy adventure miniseries Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King on March 27 and 28. The premiere averaged a 1.8 HH rating and 2.109 million total viewers (P2+). This is the most-watched Monday program ever for Sci Fi in any second quarter. Dark Kingdom was the #1 movie on cable on Monday with P25-54s (1.181 million), beating Lifetime's Black Widower (1.151 million).

Uncharted Territoryco-produced Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King with Tandem Communications and VIP Medienfonds. Along with co-producing, Volker Engel and Marc Weigert supervised its 671 visual effects shots.

Dark Kingdom previously aired in Germany as Ring of the Nibelungs. Viewed by an estimated 8 million on its opening night (11/29/04), it became one of the most successful events in Germany's television history, receiving the highest ratings of any German TV movie for 2004, and the highest ratings for any Sat1 dramatic production in the network's history. Ring of the Nibelungs was honored with the 2005 German DIVA award for the most successful TV movie of 2004.

Based on the German myth that was one of the inspirations for J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the miniseries centers on Eric (Benno Fuermann), a young blacksmith who is unaware that his true identity is actually Siegfried, the orphaned heir to a conquered kingdom. When an asteroid strikes the Earth, it sets off a chain of events that sends Eric on an adventure to discover his destiny. He encounters his true love, the Norse warrior Queen Brunhild (Loken), becomes a hero to the Burgunds after slaying the much-feared dragon Fafnir and is rewarded with the ancient treasure trove the beast protected: the treasure of the Nibelungs. Eric ignores warnings of a curse placed on the treasure, an act that ultimately endangers his love for Brunhild and the reclaiming of his birthright.

Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King stars Julian Sands, Kristanna Loken, Alicia Witt, Samuel West, Robert Pattinson and Max Von Sydow. Dark Kingdom is executive-produced by Tim Halkin and Andreas Grosch and produced by Rola Bauer and Andreas Schmid. Diane Duane, Peter Morwood and Uli Edel wrote the miniseries, which was directed by Edel. The miniseries was licensed to SCI FI by Debmar-Mercury and its principals, Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein.