MGM topper Mark Burnett is stepping down from the company, six months after its $8.5bn acquisition by Amazon. Burnett, who had been chairman of MGM’s Worldwide Television Group, will continue to work on some of the company’s longest running shows, including Survivor for CBS, The Voice for NBC and Shark Tank for ABC. However, he […]
Former Viaplay and Shahid exec Jakob Mejlhede Andersen has linked up with former Shine International CEO Camilla Hammer to launch a new MENA-based production company. The Yard Films will focus on developing and producing scripted and unscripted shows for both local and international players from its bases in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The company said […]
Abacus to shop ‘Faithless’ Abacus Media Rights has acquired comedy drama Faithless for international distribution. The 6 x 30-minute series is a Media Musketeers Studios & Entourage Ventures collaboration with Grand Pictures for Virgin Media. Created, co-written by, and starring Baz Ashmawy (50 Ways to Kill Your Mammy), the show tells the story of three young sisters living in Dublin and […]
France’s TF1 has partnered with Belgium’s RTBF and Banijay on a Black Forest-set crime drama set over three decades. Les Disparus De La Forêt Noire is being produced by Banijay Studios France, Fiction’Air and Belga Productions, with sales overseen by Banijay Rights. The story is set in the heart of the Black Forest, at a […]
Israel’s Keshet 12 and global distributor Keshet International (KI) have partnered with Jill Offman’s Sixty-Six Media to co-produce a drama based on Matti Friedman’s book exploring Leonard Cohen’s 1973 concert tour to the front lines of the Yom Kippur War. Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen In The Sinai tells the little told story of how […]
UK broadcaster Channel 5 has commissioned Black Cab, a new thriller series about a Liverpool taxi driver’s growing obsession with a late-night radio DJ. Produced by Story Films, the 4 x 60-minute series is set to debut in 2023. Nick Saltrese (A Prayer Before Dawn) has written the series, and Diarmuid Goggins (Kin, Bulletproof) will serve as director, while […]
Hailing from Finland, this 10-part drama was first written more than a decade ago and is set in the suburbs of Helsinki during the 1980s. It explores what happens after a child disappears from a close-knit community, as bereft local parents decide to take matters into their own hands. The story tracks how neighbourhood secrets, […]
Italian prodco Bamboo Production has hired former WarnerMedia exec Thomas J Ciampa as chief of international operations. Ciampa will play a major role in the development of all international projects at the Marco Belardi-led firm, with the first on the slate seeing Giuseppe Tornatore return to write and direct a TV series of his 1988 […]
London and LA-based indie The Ink Factory has reunited with German prodco Amusement Park to co-produce a new TV adaptation of the 2008 John le Carré novel A Most Wanted Man. The two companies previously collaborated on a 2014 feature film version of the story, directed by Anthony Corbijn and starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and […]
Planete+ and C8 in France have ordered a docudrama special retelling the epic story of Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc – Woman, Warrior, Saint (1 x 90 minutes) aims to reveal the French icon’s true personality and will feature around 70% of dramatised reenactments, which will tell her remarkable story through reenacted interviews with […]
