CANNES — Hitting the ground running: “Dangerous Moms,” one of the first series sold by Mediterráneo Audiovisual, the newly integrated sales-production operation of Spain’s Mediaset España, won the MipDrama Buyers’ Summit Coup de Couer. The award was adjudicated by buyers attending the Summit on Sunday where 10 series titles were pitched via 15 minute extracts.
Television
Expectation Entertainment has not only met expectations but exceeded them in the two years since it was set up, but given the track-record of its co-CEOs perhaps this should not be such a surprise. The company, led by Peter Fincham, formerly controller of BBC One and director of television at ITV, and Tim Hincks, latterly
ITV Studios has powered into MipTV with a slew of deals under its belt for both its homegrown British and international dramas. It has sealed free-TV deals for ITV series “The Bay” and pre-sales for upcoming BBC drama “Gold Digger.” ITV Studios Global Entertainment has also struck its first deals for Scandi series “Kieler Street”
Cottonwood Media and ZDF have given the greenlight to Season 3 of tween drama series “Find Me in Paris,” with Federation Kids & Family launching sales Monday at Cannes content market MipTV. The show, which combines ballet, modern dance, drama and comedy, follows the story of Lena Grisky, a time-travelling ballet dancer from 1905 in
Fueled by the demands of the digital marketplace and linked to evolving local tastes, dramatic series have attained unprecedented influence in the French television industry, marking a notable departure from the country’s longtime approach. For decades, international acquisitions dominated Gallic airwaves, while local production focused mainly on one-off telefilms, less-than-prestigious family shows and self-contained limited
The confluence of eager international buyers on the hunt for scripted dramas and strict local statutes that prioritize standalone production houses has had a galvanizing effect on the French television business. New actors have jumped into the fray, while other deep-rooted entities have refocused their attention toward series development. The landscape has significantly expanded, causing
China’s Hunan TV is to co-produce “Acting Up” with Endemol Shine Group. The talent show is the first product of a wider agreement between the two companies announced in October last year. “Acting Up” is a new talent format where up-and-coming actors vie for roles in real Chinese scripted drama films. The pilot is currently
The big money going into drama means scripted grabs all the headlines in TV these days, but under the radar there’s a surprising amount of innovation going on within unscripted entertainment, too. At first glance, it seems like little has changed in that genre, as the list of top formats is familiar. Franchises such as
CANNES — Powering up an enhanced production-distribution axis in Europe, Movistar +, the pay TV unit of Telefonica, Europe’s second biggest telco, have closed a multi-year distribution-production alliance with Germany’s Beta Film, one of the continent’s biggest independent production-distribution companies. Beta Film already distributed Movistar + series on a title-by-title basis. Made by Christian Gockel,
The Mediapro offices in Madrid’s Fuencarral district have for years boasted the logo of Globomedia, Spain’s premier scripted series production house. But in the second half of April, a new logo, the Mediapro Studio, will replace the old. The change marks a near-total reinvention of the company’s scripted series production paradigm, says Mediapro partner Taxto
April 7, 2019 10:00PM PT Alan Taylor, who is currently directing “The Sopranos” feature for New Line, will helm “The Swarm,” the environmental drama that will be exec produced by Frank Doelger (“Game of Thrones”). Taylor won an Emmy for an episode of “The Sopranos” and directed nine installments of the landmark HBO series. His
Zoe Saldana is thrilled to have James Gunn back on board for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” Disney reinstated the director, who was fired from the Marvel franchise for offensive tweets, in mid-March. The studio had fired Gunn last July when controversial tweets from nearly a decade ago resurfaced. The near-dozen tweets, which were
CANNES — “I like your style, Stine. Straight forward. You open your interviews like a man,” Walter Gropius (August Diehl) ironizes, when at the beginning of “Bauhaus -a New Era,” a feminist interviewer, in 1963 Massachusetts, asks him the first director of Wiemar Germany’s Bauhaus art school, a member of the avant garde, the most
Canneseries will again this year shine a light on the up-and-coming short-form series format. Featuring promising and innovative formats which frequently end up on platforms popular among young audiences, the competition embraces new ways in which series can and are being consumed. Emmy winning writer-producer Greg Garcia (“My Name is Earl”) heads the Short-Form Competition
CANNES — Playing Official Competition at Canneseries, “Studio Tarara’ protagonist Ricki Boelsens, late 40s but with a hugely lived-in face, looks at himself in the mirror. There’s a poster of him as a young man starring in King Lear. Now he’s just checked out of hospital after a drink and cocaine bender at a party
April 6, 2019 10:43PM PT The first European deals for cop and canine drama “Hudson & Rex” are rolling in ahead of the show getting its official international premiere at MipTV in Cannes. The show is the English-language remake of a Europe-originated procedural about a detective and his German Shepherd sidekick, Rex. Italian pubcaster Rai
Entertainment One has landed in Cannes with “Tricky Dick” after securing the international rights to CNN’s Richard Nixon documentary series. The deal comes as producer-distributor eOne moves more heavily into factual sales and sets out to acquire standout shows that can sit alongside its drama offerings. Four-part documentary “Tricky Dick” is an original from news
April 6, 2019 10:28PM PT Channel 4 has snagged the U.K. rights to a documentary series about an expedition to the depths of the Black Sea and a shipwreck graveyard that includes what is thought to be the oldest intact wreck ever found. “Lost Worlds: Deeper into the Black Sea” has also already been picked
CANNES — Next stop Latin America. Having powered up high-end drama series production in Spain to 14-15 series this year via pay TV unit Movistar +, Telefonica has unveiled its first premium original series projects in Latin America. Both set to shoot in a couple of months, they open up a further theater of production
Banijay Rights will bring soon-to-launch Scandi-Noir crime thriller “Wisting,” based on the best-selling novels of Jørn Lier Horst, to the market at this year’s MipTV. “Wisting” was co-created by Kathrine Valen Zeiner and director Trygve Allister Diesen, and follows homicide detective William Wisting on the most difficult case of his career, hunting down a dangerous
The Writers Guild of America has announced a six-day delay on tightened rules on Hollywood agents, averting a potentially scenario that has unnerved the industry in recent days. The WGA announced in a message to members just before 10 p.m. Saturday that it would wait until 12:01 am April 13 to implement its new “Code
For the second year in a row, Montreal-based production company St Laurent Web (St Laurent TV) has a series in the official selection at Canneseries. “La Maison des Folles,” (“Home Turf”) world premieres at this year’s digital series competition as one of the most buzzed-up titles. Last year the company’s digital short-form series “Dominos” was
With “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington hosting the April 6 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” it was inevitable the late-night NBC series would parody his HBO epic. But rather than take on the final season of the series, “SNL” instead looked ahead at the “prequels, sequels and spinoffs” still to come. First up was
U.K.’s Fearless Minds is joining forces with Spain’s “Hierro” producer Portocabo and Vaca TV to co-produce high-end historical mini-series project “Garbo, el espía que engañó a Hitler” (“Garbo, The Spy Who Double-Crossed Hitler”). Inspired by the life of the one-off Juan Pujol, alias Garbo, a Spanish double agent who helped change the course of World
“Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington hosted the April 6 episode of “Saturday Night Live” and naturally had to field questions during his monologue about “who wins ‘Game of Thrones’.” But surprisingly, some of those questions came from his own co-stars, Emilia Clarke and John Bradley, and his real-life wife Rose Leslie. Clarke stood up
Jason Sudeikis made a surprise appearance on the April 6 episode of “Saturday Night Live” as the late-night sketch comedy series kicked off with a cold open focusing on the recent allegations that former vice president Joe Biden inappropriately touched women at political events in the past. Sudeikis previously portrayed Biden during his time as
CANNES — Netflix’s “How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)” kicks off with a police special unit, automatic rifles trained, moving in silently for asking. The target, a buff teen drug dealer, at work in his basement lab lair. He bolts on his scooter, doesn’t get 10 yards before he’s arrested. So this is how the
Amazon Prime Video is planning an unprecedented worldwide release of its first original Spanish-language scripted comedy series, (“How to Survive Being Single” (“Como Sobrevivir Soltero”). Jointly created by Mexico’s Zurita brothers, both actors, the series is co-produced by L.A.-based Campanario, Sony Pictures, which also handles international sales, and the Zuritas’ shingle, Addiction House. Described as
For Benoît Louvet, the managing director of Canneseries, “the Golden Age of television is ahead of us.” He hails the wealth of creativity of the series – both the projects in development and the completed shows – to be found at this year’s drama series festival, which runs to Wednesday in Cannes. Attracting financing for
Diana Rigg, who rose to stardom in “The Avengers” in the 60s and continues to attract admirers today in “Game of Thrones,” received the Variety Icon Award at Canneseries Friday. The actress, who won a BAFTA for “Mother Love” and an Emmy for “Rebecca,” underscored the longevity of her career, and the progression of the