Scripted


Netflix loads up on German originals with five new titles

Netflix is set to produce five new German originals, following the success of 2018 supernatural drama Dark. The new slate, launching at the start of 2019, was revealed by Kelly Luegenbiehl, Netflix’s vice president of original series for Europe, during the Medientage München media conference in Munich. It will include a variety of genres ranging […]

Amazon to adapt BBC Three’s People Just Do Nothing

Amazon is adapting BBC Three comedy People Just Do Nothing. The global SVOD has ordered a pilot based on the mockumentary-style comedy, which has aired across four series in the UK and is set to end later this year with a fifth series. The half-hour program will be produced by Ash Atalla’s London-based prodco Roughcut […]

Apple to roll out TV streamer globally

Apple is set to launch its TV streaming service globally in 2019, according to reports. The tech giant will launch its upcoming TV subscription service in 100 territories, according to The Information. It will first launch the service in the US in the first half of 2019 and roll it out globally in following months, […]

Bodyguard smashes BBC viewing records ahead of Netflix launch

BBC One drama Bodyguard smashed viewing records, drawing 17.1m people for its finale. The figure makes it the UK’s most watched episode of any drama series across all channels since records began in 2002. It makes Bodyguard the most watched TV programme outside of sporting and national events since 2010. The full series, written and […]

Richard Yee: Getting Karl Pilkington into scripted

Sick of It director and co-writer Richard Yee tells TBI how he convinced The Idiot Abroad’s Karl Pilkington to take on the challenge of scripted drama in a two-part role reflecting his everyday conversations with himself. Sick of It is the new Sky drama about London cabbie Karl, a man attempting to get over a […]

Liberty: DR’s last international drama?

Ahead of the news that DR is to cut spend on international drama and focus its efforts on regional content, Nick Edwards reports on what may well be the last of big international investments in the genre at the Danish broadcaster With shows such as The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge, Danish national broadcaster DR […]

Netflix takes bite out of BBC One’s Dracula

BBC One and Netflix are partnering on a three-part adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Sherlock producers Hartswood Films is producing the 3 x 90-minute series, which is co-created and co-written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. The drama is to reintroduce audiences to the Transylvanian vampire. Dracula was commissioned by Charlotte Moore, director of BBC […]

Script to Screen: MotherFatherSon

Luring Richard Gere to television after a 30-year break, BBC Two’s MotherFatherSon examines family, power dynamics and the turbulent media world Act 1 BBC Studios Production’s Head of Drama, Hilary Salmon, had worked previously with writer Tom Rob Smith on the critically acclaimed BBC Two drama London Spy, so when the prolific novelist and screenwriter […]

France Televisions boards Federation’s Josephine and Napoleon

France Télévisions has boarded Federation Entertainment and Ecosse Films’ marquee period drama Josephine and Napoleon. The 8 x 52-minute French Revolution-set drama, which is currently in development, is created by showrunner Tony Saint (Das Boot) and follows the relationship between the French artistocrat and 25-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte. The Artist and The Past actor Bérénice Bejo […]

Writer’s Room: Inside Informer

Consider all angles and perspectives of a character to write more nuanced and textured stories, say Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, the writers behind BBC One drama Informer, about a second-generation Pakistani man who goes undercover for the British counter-terrorism police. It is early evening, and the two of us are having dinner with a […]