‘This England’ firm Passenger & ‘Shrink’s Caledonia Productions strike first-look co-pro agreement

L-R: Richard Brown & Patrick Daly

Passenger, the scripted firm led by True Detective producer Richard Brown, has signed a first-look deal with Patrick Daly’s Caledonia Productions.

The two-year deal with Passenger, which now sits within Fremantle’s global drama division, will see the New York and London-based firms collaborate on select existing Passenger and Caledonia film and television projects, while also building a new slate of projects to co-produce, with Fremantle to handle global distribution.

Daly’s production credits include August: Osage County, starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, UNA starring Rooney Mara, Ben Mendelsohn and Riz Ahmed, and Galveston starring Ben Foster.

The feature film Marshall Street is currently in development with Film 4 to be directed by Nadia Latif, while the eight-part comedy series Shrink, developed and executive produced by Daly, is currently streaming on Peacock.

This England producer Passenger was acquired by Fremantle In December 2022, with the independent production company becoming a fully owned label, sitting within Fremantle’s global drama division.

As part of the deal, Brown has also taken on a new creative role across global drama to help drive Fremantle’s development and production efforts, working on titles including Michael Winterbottom’s new drama series Fall of the God of Cars.

“I’ve been keen to collaborate with Patrick for a long time, he’s a highly talented producer with excellent taste and invaluable creative instincts,” revealed Brown.

“Now that Fremantle has become Passenger’s permanent home, we’ve been looking for exciting opportunities to ramp up and expand our capacity to produce a growing number of quality film and TV projects. This deal with Patrick and Caledonia is a major step towards achieving that goal.”