Television

CANNES —   When a band assaulted a smalltime bank in the province of Buenos Aires this year, they wore the Salvador Dali masks featured in the Spanish series “La Casa de Papel” (Money Heist). Netflix head Reed Hastings donned the same mask and overalls to announce in a video a Netflix carriage deal with

In the first scene of “El Embarcadero” (“The Pier”), from “Money Heist” creators Alex Pina and Esther Martinez Lobato, Oscar vidcams his lover, Veronica, naked in bed, getting up, popping on a dress and walking out in dazzling sun onto her patio, the stunning L’Albufera freshwater lagoon beyond. “The Pier’s” opening captures in a nutshell

Cutting-edge international drama used to be deadly serious: Think Nordic Noir. “Arde Madrid,” represents a departure. An eight-part half-hour created by Paco Leon and Anna R. Costa, the comedy-thriller yokes Spain’s grand movie comic tradition of caustic neorealism — think Rafael Azcona and Luis Berlanga — with suspense and romance, B&W cinematography of, in set

In today’s Mipcom roundup, reflecting a jam-packed day of announcements, Viacom boasts big sales, Germany’s a ‘Survivor,’ Nordics plot murder, Fremantle sells to Saudi Arabia and Vienna gets bloody. Viacom Intl. Announces Wave of Mipcom Sales Announced on Monday, Viacom International Studios (VIS) has signed sales deals for three titles before the French market. Nickelodeon’s

“Ah, my hungry dogs, after my bones,” grizzled family patriarch Abraham Guerrero, who controls Spain’s cocaine trade, greets his second son, Tomás, in the first episode of “Gigantes.” But this dog has news: Daniel, his older brother, has set up his own drug business. Abraham and Tomás shop Daniel to the police as Daniel organizes

Europe’s pubcasters have joined forces to combat such streaming giants as Netflix and Amazon in the international TV market — and the first projects from this collaboration are under way. Continental Europe’s leading public broadcasters — Italy’s RAI, France Televisions and Germany’s ZDF — in March forged a scripted content co-production pact called the Alliance

Italy’s state broadcaster RAI is leading the way in the country’s international TV boom. Though pay-TV Sky Italia and Netflix are churning out some edgier Italian shows for the international marketplace, the bold Italian pubcaster is now riding high after making a splash at the Venice Film Festival with the world premiere of HBO/RAI’s powerful

Avlu (THE YARD)FremantleMediaThis adaptation of Australian soap “Wentworth,” co-produced by FremantleMedia, is set in a female prison in Istanbul. “Avlu” boasts the same characters as the Australian original, with action-packed stories of survival as the inmates are thrown together to tackle life behind bars. Abused wife Deniz, played by Demet Evgar (“Wounded Love”), is arrested

October 15, 2018 9:15PM PT The BBC’s hit drama series “Doctor Foster” is in line for the remake treatment in South Korea. The show follows the doctor of the title – played by Suranne Jones in the British original (pictured). She suspects her husband is having an affair, and as she investigates violence and turmoil

In Today’s TV News Roundup, BBC One released new images for its adaptation of “Les Misérables,” and HBO teased an image for its upcoming superhero series “Watchmen.”  DATES Starz has announced the season two premiere of its espionage thriller “Counterpart” on Dec. 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. This season will feature newcomers Betty Gabriel as series

CANNES — Showtime’s limited series “Escape at Dannemora” marks a departure for Ben Stiller as a director, by design as he tackled eight hours of the stranger-than-fiction story of the 2015 prison break in upstate New York that led to a three-week manhunt. During a Q&A after Monday’s world premiere screening of “Dannemora” at Mipcom,

October 15, 2018 3:45PM PT Fox is developing “Deputy” from writer Will Beall and director David Ayer. Hailing from Entertainment One, “Deputy” follows Deputy Bill Hollister, a career lawman who is very comfortable kicking down doors, but is utterly lost in a staff meeting. When the L.A. County Sheriff drops dead, Bill becomes acting sheriff

Fremantle has acquired global rights, excluding the U.S., Canada and Israel, to documentary series “Enslaved,” the production and distribution giant announced at Mipcom. The series, hosted by iconic actor Samuel L. Jackson, marks 400 years since the first African was transported to the New World as a slave. Directed by Emmy-winner Simcha Jacobovici, “Enslaved” retraces

October 15, 2018 2:11PM PT Exotic locations provide inspiration for psychoactive cooking In a deal announced at Mipcom, international production and distribution company Rooftop Film has teamed with Amsterdam-based producers Totem Media and green-themed media company PRØHBTD to co-produce a new food and travel docuseries with a THC twist titled “High Cuisine.” Lending culinary credence

October 15, 2018 1:52PM PT The CW’s reboot of “Charmed” made a solid debut Sunday night. The supernatural drama drew a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demo, according to Nielsen overnight numbers, even with its lead-in, the season premiere of “Supergirl.” In total viewers, “Charmed” built slightly on the DC Entertainment drama, averaging 1.54 million

HBO named Jessica Holscott as is new executive vice president and chief financial officer: She will replace Joe Tarulli, a 27-year veteran of HBO who has decided to retire at the end of the year. Holscott had been the head of investor relations at Time Warner, which was acquired earlier this year by AT&T in

CANNES — There’s a scene in “Moscow Noir” (“Dirigenten”), the brand new Studiocanal series screening Tuesday at Mipcom, where Tom, a rudderless and emotionally damaged stock market trader, visits an defunct inland oil field, the motionless rigs like stranded big metal birds in a field in pastoral Russia. The cameras cut from a shot of

You might think Lesley Stahl would be rested. Her show, “60 Minutes,” broadcasts on Sundays. And she snared the big interview for her story last Thursday. “If I sound tired, I am,” the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent told Variety in an interview, just hours before getting on a plane to Africa to pursue another report.

October 15, 2018 12:10PM PT “Betty La Fea,” the megahit Colombian telenovela that inspired the ABC series “Ugly Betty,” has been optioned by South Africa’s Known Associates Entertainment for a local adaptation. The deal was announced at Mipcom on Monday with Colombian net RCN, which owns the rights to the format. “It is a great

Israeli television network Reshet has announced that it is canceling its planned merger with fellow network Channel Ten, saying that foot-dragging by the country’s broadcasting authority, whose final approval is required, had put it in an untenable position. “The broadcast authority’s avoidance of a decision on the merger request has led to its cancellation,” Reshet

October 15, 2018 10:45AM PT CBS is developing a drama based on James Patterson’s novel, “Texas Ranger,” Variety has learned. “Ranger” is set as a one-hour drama from writers and executive producers Jason Hall, TJ Brady and Rasheed Newson. It follows a Texas ranger and his “cantankerous” father, who move to South Florida. There, the titular ranger

NBCUniversal said it would rejigger the executive team overseeing its advertising sales, elevating two executives and parting ways with two others as traditional media sellers grapple with new demands from a Madison Avenue increasingly focused on buying broader packages of commercial time across many different outlets. Laura Molen and Mark Marshall were each named a

Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV. Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. This week, “The Conners” debuts sans Roseanne and “Daredevil” returns for Season 3 “The Conners,”

Although writers’ rooms have become more diverse in the last few years, the heads of networks or studios are “still in a bubble” when it comes to conversations around #MeToo and Time’s Up, believes “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” co-creator and showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna. And ultimately, they wield the most power when it comes to diversity in

October 15, 2018 9:34AM PT Candice Bergen herself is now vivaciously buzzing over the power of apps. “On Instagram I just get constant thank yous, and people saying things like, ‘I feel so much better. It has given me hope. It has given me joy,’” Bergen said on Saturday at the “Murphy Brown” panel at PaleyFest. The

Europe hasn’t gone Hollywood quite yet, but it’s getting there, slowly. The standing of the writer within the hierarchy of drama production in Europe has never been higher, but the Hollywood showrunner model, in its purest sense — in which the writer often has the final say in all creative decisions — is still a

If you’d asked any film critic a year or two ago to rank the arthouse auteurs most likely to direct a tony high-gloss miniseries for the BBC and AMC, South Korean iconoclast Park Chan-wook may not have been at the very bottom of the list — leave some room for Lars von Trier and Béla

October 15, 2018 8:35AM PT BBC Studios has signed a co-production partnership with China’s Tencent on upcoming natural history series “Dynasties,” it announced Monday at Mipcom in Cannes. The deal marks the third landmark natural history co-production BBC Studios has teamed on with Tencent following “Planet Earth II” and “Blue Planet II.” The agreement is

October 15, 2018 5:24AM PT Fox Networks Group has acquired worldwide format rights to Chinese reality show “The Dunk of China.” Rights were sourced from streaming giant Youku, and the deal announced at MIPCOM in Cannes. The show features up-and-coming basketball players who battle it out in team games and individual challenges to see who

The BBC and Netflix are sinking their fangs into “Dracula,” a major new series adaptation of the classic vampire tale from the team behind “Sherlock.” Variety was the first to report that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat were working on a new take on the Bram Stoker story last year, and that Sue Vertue’s Hartswood Films