There’s change afoot at Love Island seller ITV Studios. Current ITV Studios Managing Director of Global Distribution Ruth Berry has been upped to lead a unified global commercial division. This will comprise her Global Distribution arm and ITV Studios Global Entertainment. Arjan Pomper, currently Managing Director of formats division ITV Studios Global Entertainment, is stepping down. ITV Studios says uniting the units under single leadership “will enable ITV Studios to align more closely with buyers and reflects the evolution of the global market with the growth of the streaming platforms, on-going market consolidation and the adoption by many buyers of a single buying approach across all genres.” In effect, this means formats such as Love Island , My Mum Your Dad and The Voice will sit alongside finished series such as Line of Duty and LItvinenko . The catalog will comprise 90,000 hours and 285 unique formats. Dedicated format and finished programming … [Read more...] about ‘Love Island’ Seller ITV Studios Unites Distribution Under Ruth Berry, With Arjan Pomper To Exit
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StudioCanal Returns To UK Production Investment By Backing ‘Vigil’ Director
EXCLUSIVE : StudioCanal is returning to the UK television production investment scene as it finalizes a deal with an outfit co-founded by a Vigil and Downton Abbey director. The French production group will back Strong Film & Television, which was co-founded by BAFTA-winner James Strong and Matt Tombs, a former BBC and Paramount executive. Strong Film & Television was established in late 2020 and appears to have added Loretta Preece to its ranks. Preece was most recently the series producer on Casualty , the long-running, BAFTA-winning BBC continuing drama. StudioCanal is close to finalizing an announcement for the investment, which would mark one of its first notable television deals in the UK for years. In 2016, the Canal+ Group company took stakes in Urban Myth Films , producer of Fox’s War of the Worlds , and SunnyMarch , co-founded by Benedict Cumberbatch. StudioCanal has not been inactive in the acquisitions space but has focused on … [Read more...] about StudioCanal Returns To UK Production Investment By Backing ‘Vigil’ Director
Joe Cornish Talks Netflix Ghost Hunter Series ‘Lockwood & Co’ & Updates On ‘Attack The Block 2’
Joe Cornish ’s teen ghosthunter drama Lockwood and Co. launches on Netflix globally today. The show, the streamer’s latest young-adult scripted series from the UK, stars Ruby Stokes ( Bridgerton ) and newcomers Cameron Chapman and Ali Hadji-Heshmati as a teen trio who run an independent ghost fighting agency in London while competing with adult-run corporate rivals. The eight-part series, from Cornish’s Complete Fiction banner, is based on Jonathan Stroud’s books about an alternate modern world in which murderous ghosts have been attacking people since the 1960s, and only teenagers have the ability to see and repeal them. Netflix ordered it as one of seven British originals announced in December 2020. Several of these have been canned but anticipation around Lockwood has grown and reviews this week have been sparkling. “We have these brilliant books to draw on,” said Cornish in an interview with Deadline this week. “The challenge is to get it on screen with the … [Read more...] about Joe Cornish Talks Netflix Ghost Hunter Series ‘Lockwood & Co’ & Updates On ‘Attack The Block 2’