Italy to cook up its own Kitchen Musical

Hit Asian drama The Kitchen Musical is to be remade in Italy after international formats company Small World IFT struck a deal with Italian producer Casanova Multimedia.

This comes after ABC recently announced that it would remake the series in the US (under the title Avalon) after striking a deal with Ben Silverman’s Electus.

The Italian deal is the first European deal for the show following its successful launch in Asia. The show, which is produced by Asian production company The Group, airs across 17 countries in Asia including pan regional pay broadcaster AXN.

Tim Crescenti, president, Small World IFT, told TBIvision: “We sold the format into Italy; everyone goes to restaurants and if there’s one culture that sums that up more than any other it’s Italy.”

The company has also struck a deal for its reality series Miss Country Girl in the United States. The show, which is produced by Media Factory for Romanian broadcaster Prima TV, has been optioned by Time Warner-owned production studio Warner Horizon. Miss Country Girl, which is “Cinderella-meets-Pretty Woman” according to Crescenti, has already been sold to Viasat Broadcasting, which will air it in 11 countries across Europe including Sweden, Denmark, Hungary and Norway.