Netflix adds Steven Knight, Guy Ritchie & Bear Grylls projects to UK slate

Bear Grylls (Source: Netflix)

Netflix has commissioned a slew of new UK originals, across scripted and unscripted, including an adaptation of the Marian Keyes novel Grown Ups and new projects from Guy Ritchie, Steven Knight and Bear Grylls.

The orders come just a day after Netflix revealed its slate of new German shows in the works, with the streamer expanding its overall original European offering.

Grown Ups hails from See-Saw Films and is a family drama following three couples. Sam Strauss is writing and exec producing, with author Keyes to also exec produce.

House Of Guinness (working title) is the new series from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight who will write and exec produce the Kudos series about one of Europe’s most famous and enduring dynasties – The Guinness Family. Set in 19th-century Dublin and New York, the story will focus on the consequences of the death of Benjamin Guinness, the man responsible for the extraordinary success of the Guinness brewery, and the far-reaching impact of his cunning will on the fate of his four adult children.

Also on the scripted side from the UK is four-part crime drama Adolescence (working title) from Warp Films, Matriarch and Plan B Entertainment. Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne are writing the series, while Philip Barantini will direct.

Holly Willoughby (Source: Netflix)

The Choice, from Netflix and Binocular Productions, stars Suranne Jones and Julie Delpy as the British Prime Minister and French President who are forced into a fierce rivalry that puts their political futures, and lives, on the line.

Complete Fiction and Wiip are producing The Undertow, a crime noir series starring Jamie Dornan as identical twins, and based on the Nordisk Film Production television series Twin.

Charlie Brooker’s satirical anthology Black Mirror will also return for a seventh season, produced by Broke & Bones.

In unscripted, Netflix has ordered Bear Hunt (working title), from Natural Studios, Workerbee and Talkback, a competition show hosted by Holly Willoughby, that sees a group of unlikely British celebrities dropped into the Central American jungle as prey for one of the world’s most fearsome predators – survivalist Bear Grylls.

Naked is producing Buying London, which follows property mogul Daniel Daggers and his ambitious team of agents at DDRE Global as they take on and challenge London’s luxury property market.

Lightbox, meanwhile, is behind Millennium Diamond Heist, from exec producer Guy Ritchie. The three-part docuseries tells the real-life story of a group of South-East London criminals who planned to rob the Millennium Dome in 2000 to steal the world’s second biggest flawless diamond.

The Final: Attack On Wembley from Rogan Productions tells the chaos that followed the England football game in July 2021, while docuseries The Witness, from STV Studios, follows the investigation into Rachel Nickell’s 1992 murder from the point of view of her pre-school son Alex and father André.