Fremantle-owned Italian production company Wildside has signed a first-look deal with trader-turned-writer Guido Brera, whose financial thriller “Devils” spawned the Sky series of the same title that recently launched at Mipcom sold by NBCUniversal Global Distribution.
Brera worked as a trader in London before relocating to his native Italy, where he currently divides his time between finances and fiction. He debuted as a writer in 2014 with “I Diavoli,” which reconstructs the dynamics of Europe’s 2008 debt crisis through the tale of a charismatic Italian broker of a London investment bank who enters into conflict with the firm’s American CEO.
That thriller, a local bestseller that will soon be out in English, was followed in 2017 by a book about the impact of Europe’s debt crisis on political developments such as Trump’s election and Brexit. The sequel was published by now-prominent Italian imprint La Nave di Teseo, which Brera co-founded in 2015.
Wildside, the outfit behind “My Brilliant Friend,” Paolo Sorrentino’s upcoming “The New Pope” and Luca Guadagnino’s in-the-works “We Are Who We Are,” has inked the first-look deal with Brera-led I Diavoli, a collective of writers who are incubating projects spanning from TV series and movies to other multimedia formats.
Four projects, comprising series and movies, are already in development under the deal but are being kept under wraps.
“Guido Brera and his team have an extraordinary ability to delve into aspects of reality that others overlook, turning them into stories,” Fremantle COO Andrea Scrosati said in a statement. “That’s why I am particularly proud that they have chosen Fremantle, and specifically Wildside, as their creative and productive partner.”
Brera said that, for his group, “telling stories means reading in between the lines of reality, shedding light on its more obscure aspects, but especially anticipating what’s to come.”
Wildside CEO Mario Gianani said that to produce content for the global market, it’s “crucial to have access to intellectual properties that lie outside traditional channels.”