Ben Barrett


Drive gets down with ‘Downton Abbey’ special

Ben Barrett and Lilla Hurst’s Drive has picked up a Downton Abbey special for international distribution. The Peninsula Television-produced special, Return To Downton Abbey (1 x 60 minutes), goes behind the scenes on the forthcoming film as well as the series, which ran from 2010 to 2015. The Drive-distributed special is the international version of […]

Drive forges Back2Back sales in Europe, Asia

Indie distributor Drive has sold a slate of Back2Back titles, including The World’s Deadliest Weather, into Europe and Asia.  The production-funding and distribution agency has sold the third series of the programme – a co-production brokered and distributed internationally by Drive – into BBC Earth and Discovery Italy. The 13 x 60-minute series was picked up […]

Diana, Our Mother gains raft of int’l sales

Drive, the distributor for Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, has announced a range of international sales for the Oxford Film-produced documentary. NDR in Germany, TV4 in Sweden, Mediaset in Italy and RTL in French-speaking Belgium have all acquired the doc that is built around interviews with The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry. […]

Drive adds ex-Channel 5, Tigress exec to ranks

Former Channel 5 and Tigress Productions exec Lulu Prutton has joined UK-based production funding and distribution company Drive. She is taking on the role of acquisitions and sales executive after joining from New Earth Films, where she was commercial and creative manager. Like Drive co-founder Lila Hurst, she has previously worked at UK broadcaster Channel […]

Discovery, Channel 5 buy Supernatural Nazis

Channel 5 and Discovery have both prebought Supernatural Nazis, the upcoming factual series about Hitler’s plan to use supernatural forces to win World War II. The show is produced by Australian indie Wildbear and has been presold by UK funding specialist Drive. It has also shopped Supernatural Nazis to French DTT net RMC. Sales of […]

Drive deals for Why Are We Here?

Drive, the UK funding and copro specialists that recently set up a distribution arm, have sold four-part science doc Why Are We Here? to several broadcasters. The series follows Oxford Physics Professor Ard Louis and science filmmaker David Malone as they investigate the meaning of life. It was funded by The Templeton World Charity Foundation […]

A first-timer’s (re)view of MIPCOM

So Drive made its virgin trip to MIPCOM as a distributor this week; full disclosure, we have been travelling to Cannes as a presales and co-pro agent since 2013, however this market we launched our finished programme catalogue and joined the company of several new distributors in this newly evolved world of rights exploitation. In one sense […]

Drive moves into distribution, strikes Netflix deal

TV funding specialist Drive has moved into distribution, launching a new division and striking a deal with Netflix. Former Zodiak exec Laura Masson will head up international sales. The sales arm of the company will be called Drive Media Rights. Its first sale is Ronachan Films’ doc First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon, which […]

Discovery pre-buys Tsunami feature doc

Discovery Networks Western Europe has pre-bought feature documentary After the Wave, for a number of territories. The deal, brokered with UK-based financing and co-production specialist Drive, hands Discovery broadcast rights in the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. TVF International has distribution rights elsewhere. The 1x90mins After the Wave focuses on the […]

The copro landscape: Meet the fixers

A batch of one-stop shop consultancies from the UK aimed at facilitating global coproduction has emerged in the past year. Jesse Whittock gets the low-down on their strategies as the boom in international drama continues. It is obvious that, with television drama in a prolonged golden era, broadcasters will increasingly be on the hunt for […]