German sales and production outfit Beta Film has sold hit Canadian man and canine series “Hudson & Rex” to a slew of territories across Europe.
UKTV has picked up the show for the U.K. and Ireland, where it will air on the Alibi channel later this year. In addition, Beta has sold to Sweden’s TV4, Denmark’s TV2 and Spain’s Forta.
“Hudson & Rex,” produced by Shaftesbury and Pope Productions in association with Citytv and Beta Film, is the English-language adaptation of the successful European format, “Rex, A Cop’s Best Friend.” It revolves around the special partnership between detective Charlie Hudson (John Reardon, “The Killing,”) and his gifted dog Rex (German shepherd Diesel vom Burgimwald), as they deal with kidnapping, homicide, hostage situations, fraud and corruption in high places.
The series airs in Canada on Citytv and has recently been picked up for a third season with 16 new one-hour episodes in production in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
It has already been sold to more than a 100 territories, including Italy (RAI), Germany (TNT Serie), France (Mediawan/France Televisions), the Netherlands (CLT UFA), Eastern Europe and Africa (NBC Universal), as well as Latin America (Telemundo, Belleville Group, Channel 12). A U.S. deal is in final negotiations.
Beta has several projects under production. These include “3 Caminos,” a series of eight hourly episodes that is a coproduction with Ficción Producciones and Amazon Spain, dealing with the upcoming Compostela Holy Year 2021; “Dead Mountain – The Dyatlov Pass Incident,” another eight-hour series coproduced with Premier Studios, based on based on the de-classified files of the real-life case, that had people spinning wild theories all over the world for more than 60 years, ranging from avalanches, to secret weapon tests, to alien interference; and “Tell Me Who I Am,” based on the bestselling spy thriller of the same name, a coproduction with Movistar+ and DLO Producciones.