Night Manager prodco adds ex-Film4 exec

The Night Manager producer The Ink Factory has hired a former Film4 commissioner for a digital push.

Anna Higgs has joined as head of story worlds and marketing, having previously been creative director of globally distributed culture channel Nowness.

Sophie Johnston and Arielle Gottlieb are also joining as script executives.

Higgs will work alongside head of development Emma Broughton at the London- and LA-based prodco to support the company’s authored approach to scriptwriting.

She will focus on taking stories and building them into immersive narrative universes in digital media and beyond, and will build an in-house digital team out of London.

While at Channel 4’s movie-focused network Film4, she worked on digital and distribution projects for shows such as A Field in England, Frank and 20,000 Days on Earth.

Johnston and Gottlieb joined the firm last month to work on development focused on the John le Carré library and “other major forthcoming projects”.

Johnston has worked on scripts for shows such as The Bill, Hustle, MI High, Silent Witness and Foyle’s War, while Gottlieb has worked on Hooten and the Lady and The Bill, and has workd at Nutopia (The Story of Us), Euston Films and MakeFilm.

Le Carré’s sons, Stephen and Simon Cornwell, are co-CEOs of the prodco, and adapted their father’s work to create The Night Manager for the BBC in the UK and AMC in the US.

“Anna, Sophie and Arielle joining our team reinforces our continued commitment to storytelling in film and television and beyond, and to deepening audience engagement by extending storytelling worlds into the digital domain,” said Simon and Stephen Cornwell in a statement.

The Ink Factory is currently working on a TV adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold for the BBC and AMC, in association with Paramount Television.