Lookout Point’s Simon Vaughan, former BBC Studios vet Helen Jackson and Stella EOC exec Jonathan Norman have launched a media investment outfit. The Media Investment Company – which is spearheaded by Vaughan, a director of the business alongside wife and partner Justine Vaughan – is set to back talent-driven businesses. Jackson serves as executive chair […]
Channel 5 reveals slate of 2020 programmes Access-driven documentaries, history programming, natural history and heartland factual highlight a new slate of programmes heading to Viacom-owned broadcaster Channel 5 in 2020. Keo Films’ Inside Extinction Rebellion (w/t; 1 x 60 minutes) has secured access to the environmental activists, who use creativity and people power to raise awareness of […]
Netflix has signed up for a Vikings spin-off from MGM Television and the show’s original creative team. Michael Hirst’s Vikings: Valhalla begins 100 years after the original History Channel series concludes and follows the adventures of Vikings Leif Erikson, Freydis, Harald Harada and the Norman King and Viking descendant William the Conqueror. Initially helmed by […]
War Of The Worlds exec producer Jamie Brown has launched a global-facing drama prodco. The new outfit, Grand River Productions, is focused on development and will cater to both film and TV markets, with talent packaging, financing and distribution capabilities in place. The Canadian-born producer most recently served as an EP on Mammoth Screen’s historical […]
Alberto Pecegueiro is to step down as chief of Brazilian pay TV operator Globosat after almost 25 years in the role. Pecegueiro will take up a new position working across joint ventures at Grupo Globo, the pay operator’s parent company, from January next year. The veteran exec oversaw a shift in strategy for the pay […]
BBC One’s critically acclaimed thriller Line Of Duty has secured its next guest lead. Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald is to star in the next season of the World Productions-made programme – a high-profile guest role that has previously been played by Stephen Graham, Thandie Newton, Daniel Mays, Keeley Hawes and Lennie James. Macdonald is to play Detective […]
A+E Networks International has acquired global distribution rights to Hernán, the scripted series that is set to debut on Amazon in Latin America later this month. The show, jointly produced by Spain’s Onza Entertainment and Mexico’s Dopamine, stars Óscar Jaenada as 16th century conquistador and explorer Hernán Cortés, and chronicles how he explored the Americas […]
NBCUniversal-backed Carnival Films has picked up the rights to Charles Soule’s Anyone one month ahead of the novel’s publication. Soule, the author of The Oracle Year, is to adapt his highly anticipated novel for TV, in addition to exec producing alongside Carnival boss Gareth Neame, Nigel Marchant and Joanna Strevens. The novel, which will be published […]
Karen Cogan’s scripted project Fled has been named as the most recommended show of this year’s TV-focused Brit List, a compendium of unproduced screenplays rated by an array of TV representatives. The Brit List: TV details unproduced British screenplays and is based on recommendations from UK-based production companies, talent agencies, financiers and broadcasters. Cogan, who […]
Amazon has renewed its mega-budget TV adaptation of Lord Of The Rings, with the first season still in pre-production. The show is in being filmed in New Zealand and is being written by JD Payne and Patrick McCay. Amazon Studios is producing in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, publishers HarperCollins and Warner Bros. […]
