FremantleMedia-backed Duck Soup Films has appointed Red Production Company script editor Jackie Okwera as its head of development. Okwera will join the Leeds-based indie in September, as the company eyes its first scripted television and films commissions. This comes after FremantleMedia bought a 25% stake in Duck Soup, which This is England and Utopia producers […]
Canal + has commissioned Red Production Company to produce Joann Sfar’s live action drama Monsters’ Shrink. Red, a UK-based subsidiary of StudioCanal, will work with Sfar to create his first English-speaking live-action series, which follows the story of New Yorker Rebecka Broke, a neurotic and quirky psychoanalyst who discovers her husband has been found dead […]
Distributors will tell you that if they could have one drama production in their portfolio it would be an evergreen returning franchise that rakes in the cash year after year. But this doesn’t alter the fact that TV movies, minis and limited runs are also regarded as valuable assets and are increasingly getting recommissioned as […]
Streaming service Netflix and French paycaster Canal+ have co-commissioned an eight-part drama, Safe, which was previously set for Sky. The series comes from writer Harlan Coben, and will star Michael C. Hall (Dexter) and Amanda Abbingdon (Sherlock). Danny Brocklehurst (Shameless) is attached as writer. A similarly-themed series from Red, Coben and Brocklehurst was announced as […]
BBC Studios is adding Red Production Company’s Tom Sherry to its drama ranks. The BBC’s production unit has appointed Sherry as head of drama – North, meaning he will lead scripted from Salford, near Manchester, where the BBC has a base. BBC Studios Drama North is behind series including In the Flesh and From Darkness. […]
Streaming service Netflix has joined ITV conspiracy thriller drama Paranoid as a coproducer and will roll it out as a worldwide original. The eight-part series will debut on UK commercial broadcaster ITV before rolling out on Netflix services later this year. Set in a small fiction town, the series follows a team of detectives who […]
Sky has ordered another original drama from best-selling novelist Harlan Coben (pictured), The Four. The pay TV operator has greenlit the series for its flagship Sky 1 channel after its successful launch of another Coben series, The Five. Despite the numerical link, the two series are unrelated. They do share the same producer/distributor credits, with […]
Dutch public broadcaster NPO has acquired Harlan Coben-penned UK drama The Five. The ten-part drama was originally for Sky 1 and comes from Red Production Company, whose parent, Studiocanal, sells the show internationally. In the Netherlands, The Five will debut on NPO2 on June 12 during the network’s ‘Detective Month’ with a special theatrical screening […]
Writer Harlan Coben and Red Production Company have launched a joint venture production company. Coben and Red founder Nicola Shindler will be joint CEOs of Final Twist Productions, which will be based in the US. Red parent Studiocanal will handle all programming from Final Twist, which is targeting scripted programming for American broadcast networks. Studiocanal […]
Tandem Productions CEO Rola Bauer is expanding her role to oversee StudioCanal’s television projects in the US. She will now work on scripted formats from France-based StudioCanal’s production and partnership companies, and coproductions in the US, as well as working with Universal Music Group, which is part of StudioCanal parent Vivendi, on new synergies. She […]
