People to meet

Kevin Beggs, President of TV, Lionsgate

Lionsgate has expanded its TV business rapidly in recent times and has a roster of programmes it wants to talk to broadcasters about at NATPE.

It has The Rabbit Factory, a satirical cop drama from Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps writer Allan Loeb for US cable net TNT, which based on the eponymous Marshall Karp novel.

Having inked an overall deal with former Dexter showrunner Clyde Phillips, Lionsgate TV will also start having early-stage conversations about his HBO cop series The Naked Truth, based on the Israeli format that aired on Channel 10 in the country.

There is also a pilot for a TV version of the 2005 indie comedy Waiting, which Lionsgate is making for Comedy Central and a US version of British comedy series Stanley Park that is being made for Fox.

“We’re really good at making high-quality shows that are creatively daring, risky and when they hit, have the ability to become signature shows,” says Beggs, a former producer on Baywatch, who has been at Lionsgate since 1998, when he started up its TV business. “We want to do as many shows as have the capacity to do. Human resources are probably our biggest restraint, Lionsgate likes to be lean and mean, but we punch above our weight.”