A production company thinks it has found a dramatic new television format for the so-called age of terror: conducting international manhunts for suspected terrorists and war criminals, filming them and selling the finished product to television networks around the world. Its first bidder is NBC News.

In just under a week NBC is expected to introduce the series, “The Wanted,” which has already attracted criticism because of the collaboration between the journalists and the former government operatives they work with.

Soon the series may go worldwide: on Monday a distribution company, ShineReveille International, said it had acquired the series for foreign distribution.

The series has been criticized by some as an extension of “To Catch a Predator,” the “Dateline NBC” franchise that showed police officers and journalists working in concert to catch possible sex offenders when they tried to meet minors. Some have even pre-emptively labeled the series “To Catch a Terrorist.” Last winter the Department of Homeland Security warned that NBC’s pursuit of a Maryland college professor on genocide charges could hurt the ability of law enforcement officials to enact actual, as opposed to televised, justice.