BBC Worldwide on board Starz Blackpool series

Blackpool is the next series to come under the Starz and BBC Worldwide production pact, TBI has learned.

Starz announced the show earlier this year although BBC Worldwide’s involvement was not mentioned, but Starz has confirmed that the pair are codeveloping the series as part of their wider programming pact.

Worldwide, the commercial arm of the UK public broadcaster and Starz, the US premium cable net have a production pact that has thus far yielded coproduced drama series Da Vinci’s Demons. The deal was for at least two shows and Blackpool is the second project the pair work together on as part of that deal.

Set in the world of competitive ballroom dancing and in the titular British seaside town, the show is from brother and sister choreographers and Dancing With the Stars dancers Julianne and Derek Hough.

Scripts are currently being written for the show. Worldwide would not confirm its planned involvement with the series, but told TBI that it is a “project we are very excited about” and that “we would love to see it produced”. The company’s west coast division is run by Jane Tranter (pictured right).

Speaking to TBI about the series earlier this year, Starz managing director Carmi Zlotnik (pictured above left) said: “Blackpool offered the possibility of a heightened world and there’s lots of beauty and darkness there. We can take the audience to a new place and show them a world they would not otherwise see.”

One potential hurdle to Blackpool moving forward, however, could be that Starz is developing another female-skewing dance drama. The project from Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction) is set in the ballet world and written by Breaking Bad scribe Moira Walley-Beckett. Whether Starz would take two dance dramas to series is a moot point.