News

Zai Bennett is swapping Sky for BBC Studios (Bbcs) after a decade at the pay-tv giant, Screen’s sister site Broadcast can reveal.

Sky’s managing director of content for UK & Ireland is replacing Ralph Lee in an expanded role of chief executive and chief creative officer of BBC Studios Productions in November following a high-profile and international recruitment drive.

After Lee left Bbcs in April, the enhanced role will see Bennett have oversight for Bbcs’ stable of UK and international production divisions. This includes blue-chip Natural History Unit, owned labels and invested indies across its global entertainment, factual, scripted,...

Comedy writer and performer John Dredge is proud to announce that the sixth series of The John Dredge Nothing To Do With Anything Show, his absurdist podcast, will be available to stream and download courtesy of British Comedy Guide from 6pm UK time each Monday from May 20th. An expanded radio version of the series is set for broadcast on Resonance FM later in the year.

The acclaimed show returns with six all-new half-hour episodes featuring a mix of regular and new items and characters, intertwined with surreal one-off sketches and spoofs, and seasoned with a liberal sprinkling of strange sound effects.

Appearing alongside John is a large ensemble cast including Greg Haiste, Anil Desai, Katy Slater (The Milligan Papers), the show’s ‘Voice of Sanity’ Max Dowler, and its co-writer/producer Richard Cray.

Other returning cohorts include James Shakeshaft (The Loremen podcast), Paul Creasy (of Next Level Sketch Comedy) and Miles Eady,...

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was the surprise warm-up act at a prestigious film industry event in London on Wednesday night that saw Oppenheimer director — and BAFTA and Oscar front runner — Christopher Nolan receive the British Film Institute Fellowship Award for his outstanding contribution to cinema.

The premier hailed Nolan — whose credits also include the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk — as “undoubtedly one of our preeminent filmmakers.”

However, before doing so, he delivered quips with an aplomb that had guests seated in the ballroom of London’s Rosewood Hotel in stitches.

“Politics is showbusiness for ugly people,” Sunak declared. The room liked that one, even though the line’s a golden oldie.

“So, I was pleasantly surprised,” he continued, “when I was recently mistaken for Timothée Chalamet.”

Then with a well-timed pause, he added, “At least, I think that’s why they were shouting ‘Wonka’ at me.”

The room...

Doctor Rachel Clarke and ex-junior doctors Jed Mercurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah have teamed up to make Covid drama Breathtaking, here’s the trailer.

It is perhaps no surprise that following the most tumultuous, traumatic time in our recent history, writers quickly opened Final Draft and began to try to make some sense of it all.

Jack Thorne’s astonishingly powerful film Help, which starred Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham, shone a light on the brutal reality or running a care home during the pandemic.

Michael Winterbottom and Keiron Quirke aimed their anger at the political side of things, with Kenneth Branagh playing Boris Johnson in mini series This England, while writer Stephen Knight and director Doug Liman took a more lighthearted approach with comedy drama Lockdown, which saw Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor stage a diamond heist in Harrods.

Jed Mercurio is no stranger to medical dramas, drawing on his...

Blyth’s recent credits include The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Michael Winterbottom has written and is set to direct a new film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic World War I novel A Farewell To Arms starring Tom Blyth

Blyth, whose recent credits include The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and MGM+ series Billy the Kid, will play the role of volunteer ambulance driver Frederic Henry, who is wounded and falls in love with his nurse in Italy during the First World War.

The Fremantle-backed film is set to start shooting in...

Tom Blyth is exchanging the Hunger Games for a hospital bed. The British actor, who plays a young Coriolanus Snow in Francis Lawrence’s Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, has signed on to play the lead role in Michael Winterbottom’s new adaptation of the Ernst Hemingway WWI classic A Farewell to Arms.

Blyth will play Frederic Henry, a volunteer ambulance driver who is injured in Italy during the first World War and falls in love with his nurse.

The Hemingway novel, first published in 1929 and closely based on the writer’s own experience as a volunteer ambulance driver with the Italian Army on the Isonzo Front, A Farewell to Arms has been adapted multiple times in the past, including in 1932 with Gary Cooper in the Frederic Henry role, in 1957 starring Rock Hudson, and as a 1966 mini-series with George Hamilton as Henry.

Winterbottom’s feature version...

Tom Blyth is set to follow in the footsteps of Gary Cooper, Rock Hudson and George Hamilton to star in Michael Winterbottom’s new adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel A Farewell to Arms.

Fremantle, Winterbottom’s production company Revolution Films and Passenger are joining forces on the production.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and Billy the Kid star Blyth will play volunteer ambulance driver Frederic Henry, who is wounded and falls in love with his nurse in Italy during World War One.

Published in 1929, A Farewell To Arms is inspired by Hemingway’s own experiences as a volunteer ambulance driver with the Italian Army on the Isonzo Front.

Considered one of the greatest war novels of the twentieth century, it established Hemingway as a household name.

The novel has previously been...

British TV shows fetched a record £1.85B ($2.25B) in 2022-23, new stats reveal.

Sales to streamers boomed and finished tape deals came back into fashion to help exports grow 22% year-on-year, Pact’s UK TV Exports Report revealed.

Demand for shows such as The Ipcress Files, Frozen Planet II and This England built even as the international TV business faced a brutal economy, a battered TV ad market and major buyers withholding spend. Half of respondents said their business was impacted by the period of austerity and cost management at large U.S. companies.

For the first time, over half of programmes (53%) were sold to international streaming and VoD platforms, up from 39% last year. This could be connected to the growth in finished program sales, with streamers more likely to license as they pulled away from costlier original content spend.

Finished programmes accounted for 60% of sales, up by 11% to hit £1.11B,...

Warning: This article contains spoilers for series five of Ghosts

Somehow, the final series of Ghosts has neatly tied up all the show’s loose ends while still leaving us wanting more – which is a jolly good thing considering they’ve confirmed we’re getting one more Christmas special in December 2023.

They really packed a lot into those last six episodes, revealing the heartbreaking truth behind the deaths of Kitty and the Captain, showing Alison and Mike’s next step in life, and giving the whole gang the opportunity to say all the lovely, touching things fans wanted to hear (as well as adding a poignant reference to Mary in the opening credits).

Taking the characters on these final journeys involved lots of flashbacks and new faces, so let’s recap all the most important guest stars from series five:

Anna Crilly as Joy Kielty

Joy is an unexpected visitor in episode one,...

’Shoshana’ world premiered at Toronto, ahead of screenings at Dinard film festival and BFI London Film Festival.

Michael Winterbottom is one of the UK’s more prolific independent filmmakers, with over 30 features to his name across a 35-year career – but his latest, Shoshana, has been rather a slow burn.

The drama, based on real people and events, premiered in Toronto, before playing in French festival of UK and Irish film Dinard, and will have its UK premiere at BFI London Film Festival on October 7.

It is set in 1930s Tel Aviv, as violence erupt in the British Mandate for Palestine,...

Michael Winterbottom’s production company Revolution Films is opening an Italian outpost, Variety can exclusively confirm.

The production outfit, known for films and TV series including the Boris Johnson-inspired “This England” and the upcoming TIFF contender “Shoshana,” is in the process of setting up an office in the country, say sources with knowledge of the expansion. Longtime Revolution exec Melissa Parmenter will be running the new branch.

Revolution has increasingly been working in Italy in recent years and a source tells Variety the company is looking to make more films there. “Shoshana” (which was previously titled “Promised Land”) is set in Israel but was entirely shot in Italy. The film, which will premiere at TIFF on Friday, is set during the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s, when the daughter of an Israeli revolutionary (Irina Starshenbaum) falls in love with a British soldier (played by Douglas Booth).

“Shoshana...

Exclusive: BritBox International is stacking the shelves with more high-profile UK drama series.

The streamer has acquired North American rights to The Sixth Commandment and U.S. rights to This England. Both series, which are based on real events, have made significant noise in the UK and their acquisition follow on from BritBox’s July captures of cop series Granite Harbour and psychological drama The Ex-Wife.

The Sixth Commandment will play as a BritBox Original. The series, written by Sarah Phelps and directed by Saul Dibb (The Salisbury Poisonings), is inspired by the BAFTA-nominated documentary Catching A Killer: A Diary From the Grave.

It follows one of the most complex criminal cases in recent British history and tells the story of inspirational teacher Peter Farquhar (Timothy Spall), and charismatic young student Ben Field (Éanna Hardwicke), who meet and bond over their love of...

Veep creator Armando Iannucci is bringing to London’s West End his first play – a satire on former UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Variety reports that Iannucci – Oscar-nominated for his screenplay In the Loop – has called the play Pandemonium: Being a Scornful Account of the Activities of Mr Boris Johnson and ‘Others’ during the Pandemic and its Aftermath, which will debut at the Soho Theatre on December 1.

The play will be directed by Patrick Marber, previously Oscar-nominated for his Notes on a Scandal screenplay, and a Tony Award winner for Leopoldstadt.

Iannucci is also hard at work on a new stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 political satire Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Variety quotes Iannucci, one of the UK’s most celebrated political satirists with Veep and previously In the Thick of It skewering the British government’s conduct,...

True Detective producer Richard Brown’s Passenger has struck a first-look deal with Patrick Daly’s Caledonia Productions.

The pair will partner on some existing film and TV projects for the next two years, along with building a co-production slate. Fremantle, which bought Passenger late last year and counts Brown as a global drama exec, will handle global distribution of the projects.

“Fremantle is the most exciting home for world class storytelling, and coupled with Richard’s superb taste, passion for writers, and ambition for Passenger, makes it the perfect place for Caledonia to expand its TV and Film capabilities,” said Daly, while Brown added that he had been “keen to collaborate with Patrick for a long time.”

Brown’s Passenger is a co-producer on HBO’s True Detective, which is soon launching a Jodie Foster-starring fourth season, along with the likes of Sky’s This England. His creative...

Caledonia Productions, the banner of Patrick Daly, the theater and film director whose feature credits include August: Osage County, Una and Galveston, has signed a first-look deal with Passenger, headed by its founder Richard Brown (This England, True Detective, Catch-22).

The two-year deal with Passenger, which now sits within Fremantle’s Global Drama division, will see Daly and Brown collaborate on select existing Passenger and Caledonia film and television projects in addition to building a new slate of projects to co-produce. Fremantle will handle global distribution.

Both Passenger and Caledonia are based in New York and London.

“I have known and admired, Richard Brown and Fremantle’s Christian Vesper for many years, so when this partnership opportunity arose, it really was an easy decision to make,” said Daly, whose 15 years’ experience in producing theatre in the U.S. and U.K. has included productions of Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica, Katori Hall...

New Project

Update: The title of Vannuccini’s sequel to “Commedia” has been changed to “Things and Other Things.”

Riccardo Vannuccini has set a sequel to his feature “Commedia.” Titled “Tarzan,” the project will see him again team up with “This England” star Greta Bellamacina, with whom he starred in “Commedia.”

The duo will reprise their roles as Rocco and Irene, this time in a post-industrial landscape. Manolo Cinti is on board as Dp. “Tarzan,” which begins shooting in Italy this November, is co-produced by Artestudio in Rome and Sulk Youth in the U.K.

“Commedia” is set to be released on Prime Video in the U.K. and U.S. this month.

“Our heroes have managed to mysteriously escape from where they were – but where were they?” says Vannuccini. “They are busy doing nothing, making small acts, to leave imaginative traces of their passage, imagined signs of being in the world.

Exclusive: Sky wanted to start 2023 with a bang. Comcast’s European pay-tv giant gathered journalists at London’s salubrious Soho Hotel and laid on a banquet table heaving with Danish pastries. A smorgasbord of upcoming Sky content was also on the menu, but there was really only one show on everyone’s lips. The Last of Us had recently premiered and Pedro Pascal’s blockbuster apocalypse series was in the mood to steal Sky’s thunder.

Sky is the home of HBO content in the UK and people who know the business will tell you it is both a blessing and a curse. In many respects, it is the diamond-studded crown atop Sky’s £500M ($630M) original content pile, but industry insiders say the headgear weighs heavy.

HBO makes some of the best television in the world by any standard, meaning Sky is subscription bait for Succession and Game of Thrones fans.

Idris Elba in ‘Hijack,’ premiering June 28, 2023 on Apple TV+

Idris Elba, the Emmy Award-winning star of Luther, stars in and executive produces the new thriller Hijack, which will premiere on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, June 28, 2023. The seven-episode drama, created by George Kay (Lupin) and Jim Field Smith (Criminal), has just released the first set of photos from the upcoming season.

In addition to Idris Elba, Hijack stars Emmy Award winner Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife), Christine Adams (Black Lightning), Max Beesley (Jamestown), Eve Myles (Torchwood), Neil Maskell (Peaky Blinders), Jasper Britton (Anonymous), Harry Michell (Devils), Aimee Kelly (This England), Mohamed Elsandel, and Ben Miles (Andor).

George Kay writes and executive produces, with Jim Field Smith directing and executive producing. In addition, Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta and Kris Thykier executive produce, and 60Forty Films, Idiotlamp Productions, and Green Door Pictures produce.

Apple TV+ released the following synopsis of the thriller:

“Told in real time,...

Exclusive: Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner Tom Courtenay (Doctor Zhivago), Emmy winner Anna Calder-Marshall (Wuthering Heights) and Bridgerton breakout Florence Hunt are currently filming under-the-radar feature drama Queen At Sea in the UK.

Plot is largely being kept under wraps but we understand Binoche will play a woman who moves back to London with her teenage daughter (Hunt) amid concern for her ageing mother (Calder-Marshall).

The film will mark the second feature for writer-director Lance Hammer who 15 years ago made his debut with well-received Sundance drama Ballast, which won two awards in Park City, and played a host of festivals before winning the filmmaker a Gotham award for breakthrough director and garnering six Indie Sprit nominations.

Hammer, now in his 50s, went quiet after his debut 15 years ago so there will be intrigue around his second feature. Prior to Ballast the filmmaker was...

U.S.-Lebanese actor Tony Shalhoub, who played the “defective detective” on “Monk,” is set to star as former auto mogul-turned-fugitive Carlos Ghosn in a high-profile TV series directed by Michael Winterbottom.

Ghosn is the French-Lebanese-Brazilian former CEO of automakers Nissan and Renault who in 2020 jumped bail and absconded to Beirut hidden in a music case on a private jet while on trial in Japan for alleged financial misconduct. Lebanon does not have an extradition treaty with Japan.

The six-part series titled “Fall of the God of Cars” is written by Winterbottom, the prolific British director of “Welcome to Sarajevo,” whose TV work comprises hit sitcom series “The Trip” and, more recently, “This is England” starring Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson.

The Winterbottom Ghosn show is being produced by Fremantle, Revolution Films, Passenger and Anonymous Content.

The project was originally developed by Winterbottom and Alfonso Cuaron for Anonymous Content, the...

Director’s Revolution Films has partnered with Fremantle, Passenger and Anonymous Content on six-parter

Director Michael Winterbottom is making a six-part drama, Fall Of The God Of Cars, about former Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn.

Winterbottom’s Revolution Films is collaborating with Fremantle, Passenger and Anonymous Content on the series, which tells the story of the Brazilian-Lebanese businessman who was arrested in Japan and one year later orchestrated his own escape to Beirut, hidden in a music case on a private jet.

The series is written and directed by Winterbottom. Tony Shalhoub stars as Ghosn.

The series was originally developed by Winterbottom,...

A dramatization of the life of Carlos Ghosn, the former Nissan/Renault CEO who escaped from arrest hidden in a music case, is in the works from Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón and This England’s Michael Winterbottom.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Monk star Tony Shalhoub is set to play Ghosn in the six-part TV series Fall of the God of Cars, which comes from Fremantle, Anonymous Content, Richard Brown’s Passenger and Winterbottom’s Revolution Films.

Ghosn was the wealthy Brazilian-Lebanese CEO of Nissan and Renault whose world came tumbling down when he was arrested in Japan in 2018 on allegations of under-reporting his salary and gross misuse of company assets. One year later, he orchestrated an escape to Beirut, hidden in a music case on a private jet, and, with multiple warrants out for his arrest, he has remained there ever since.

The big-budget series was originally developed by Winterbottom,...

Carlos Ghosn, the disgraced Nissan exec whose dramatic fall from grace as one of the biggest names in the motoring industry has already led to several documentaries, is getting the scripted treatment.

Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub (Monk, The Marvelous Miss Maisel) will play the Brazilian-Lebanese exec in the newly-announced six-part drama Fall of the God of Cars, written and directed by prolific Brit filmmaker Michael Winterbottom (Welcome to Sarajevo, The Trip, 24 Hour Party People). The series comes from Fremantle, Winterbottom’s Revolution films (This England, A Mighty Heart), Passenger (True Detective, Outlaw King, Catch-22) and Anonymous Content (The Revenant, Mr Robot, Maniac). It was originally developed by Winterbottom, Alfonso Cuaron and Anonymous Content.

Ghosn, a major business figure who for several years headed up both Renault and Nissan and helped save Nissan from near-bankruptcy in 1999, was arrested in Japan in December 2018 over allegations of under-reporting his salary and gross misuse of company assets,...

“In the heyday of cinema, everyone was making a film a year.”

Prolific UK director Michael Winterbottom has railed against the pace of filmmaking in the UK, saying it has become the norm to make a film just once every three or four years.

“It’s worth remembering that in the heyday of cinema, everyone was making a film a year,” said the director who has made over 30 films in his career. “People were making 20 or 30 films – that, I think, is healthy. If you think about how things have changed since then, nothing has got more complicated; in fact it has got easier.

Fremantle has struck a two-year, first-look deal with Nine Hours, the new production label set up by Edward Berger, director of the Oscar-nominated “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and his partner Luke Rivett.

Netflix drama “All Quiet on the Western Front” recently scored nine Oscar nominations, including best picture, and a record 14 BAFTA nominations. Berger’s other directing credits include “Patrick Melrose,” “Your Honor,” “ The Terror” and Fremantle’s “Deutschland 83.”

The two-year deal will see Fremantle become the primary home for all of Nine Hours’ television projects. It will also give the super-indie second look access to Berger’s new film pipeline. The new production company was launched by Berger and Rivett with producer Jeanne Tremsal.

The deal with Berger was spearheaded by Fremantle’s Christian Vesper, who was recently promoted to CEO of global drama, and Seb Shorr, executive VP of commercial and business affairs. Lorenzo De Maio assisted on the deal.

All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger has launched a new production label, Nine Hours, and signed a two-year first-look deal with production giant Fremantle.

Berger, riding high on the success of All Quiet, which picked up 9 Oscar nominations, including for best picture, launched the new company together with producing partners Luke Rivett (Corner Office, Berlin Station) and Jeanne Tremsal (So Long Daddy, See you in Hell).

Fremantle’s deal will give the company the first crack at Nine Hours’ television projects and second-look access to Berger’s new film pipeline.

All Quiet on the Western Front, made for Netflix, has been a breakout success this awards season. In addition to its 9 Oscar nominations, the German film is the front-runner for this year’s BAFTA awards, with an astounding 14 nominations. The first-ever German adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic anti-war novel, the film stars Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch and Daniel Brühl.

Kaleidoscope Film Distribution has acquired international sales rights for all-female drama “Tell That to the Winter Sea” and will represent the film at Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM) in February.

Directed by Jaclyn Bethany “The Invisible Girl”), who also co-wrote alongside lead actor Greta Bellamacina (“This England”), the film follows bride-to-be Jo and her first love, Scarlet, who reunite after years apart to celebrate Jo’s upcoming marriage at a house in the English countryside. Having initially bonded through their love of dance, Jo is now a successful dancer with a Parisian dance company, whilst Scarlet teaches movement at a secondary school. As Jo approaches a major transition, she turns to Scarlet to share both her joy and melancholy to reflect on the young women they once were, and the women they are becoming.

The all-female cast also includes Amber Anderson (“Peaky Blinders”), Tamsin Egerton (“St. Trinian’s”), Jessica Plummer...

There was a time when Fremantle was shorthand for the American Idol company. ABC’s iconic entertainment brand was undoubtedly a coveted calling card, but it also served to constrain perceptions of a company that harbored a grander vision.

Peter Bose, the preeminent Danish drama producer behind shows including Wallander, knows this better than most. He recalls a conversation he had with CAA in 2013 after telling his agent he wanted to sell his company, Miso Films, to Fremantle.

“Fremantle? Who is Fremantle within scripted?” came the reply. “We couldn’t actually argue, you know,” Bose remembers. A decade on, the acquisition of Miso was a brick in the foundations of Fremantle delivering more than 100 dramas last year.

Fremantle is now firmly established in the scripted game. It was the company that transformed Sir Kenneth Branagh into Boris Johnson for This England. Its Nordic noir hit Face to Face, made by Miso,...

Fremantle has promoted Christian Vesper to the newly created position of CEO of global drama. He will report to Andrea Scrosati, Group COO and CEO Continental Europe.

Previously, Vesper served as president of the department, a role he was appointed to in 2020 after joining the company four years earlier as executive vice president and creative director of global drama.

In the expanded capacity, Vesper will continue to build on Fremantle’s portfolio of scripted dramas and have direct oversight over the company’s scripted labels, including Miso Film (“The Investigation”), Wildside (“My Brilliant Friend”), The Apartment, Element Pictures, Lux Vide (“Medici”), Dancing Ledge Productions (“The Salisbury Poisonings”) and the group’s most recent acquisition, Passenger.

Also Read:

Lux Vide CEO Explains Why Being Acquired by Fremantle Was the Best Way Forward

He will also oversee Fremantle’s talent and deal roster, which includes “Chernobyl” director Johan Renck and Michael Paret...

Filmmaking’s over-reliance on green screens and de-aging these days makes it easy to feel that “pure” craftsmanship is increasingly rare in Hollywood. Makeup and prosthetics are among the final vestiges of the pre-digital era, reminders that movies are ultimately born of collaborations between people, not just computers. However, prosthetics are more than production mementos to be displayed in museums. They also bridge past and present, combining cutting-edge digital modeling and 3D printing with traditional techniques. The following stellar examples of cosmetic appliances harken back to old-school stagecraft as much as they demonstrate the capacity of modern technology to transform well-known faces into ones we can barely recognize.

Christian Bale (“Thor: Love and Thunder”)

Christian Bale is perhaps Hollywood’s most gifted shapeshifter, having undergone dramatic makeovers for “The Machinist,” “The Fighter,” “American Hustle,” and “Vice,” but his incarnation of Gorr the God Butcher in “Thor: Love and Thunder” may end up his most memorable.

Click here to read the full article.

Fremantle has taken full control of Richard Brown’s production company, Passenger (This England).

Brown launched Passenger with Fremantle’s backing in May 2019 and signed an exclusive multi-year deal with the production giant, a subsidiary of Germany’s Rtl Group.

Following the takeover, announced Tuesday, Passenger will be part of Fremantle’s Global Drama division, led by Christian Vesper. Brown will continue to run the company but will also take over a new creative role across Fremantle’s Global Drama division, helping to link up talent and projects across the company’s rapidly expanding international network of production labels. Brown’s pre-Passenger production credits include on HBO’s True Detective, Netflix period epic Outlaw King with Chris Pine, and Hulu’s limited series Catch-22 starring George Clooney.

Passenger plans to expand its team in New York, Los Angeles and London, with Caitlin Bruner,...

Exclusive: Fremantle has acquired True Detective and This England exec Richard Brown’s Passenger, with Brown landing a role within the super-indie’s Global Drama division.

The highly-acquisitive Rtl-owned outfit already has an exclusive overall agreement with Passenger, which has spawned the likes of This England, Sky’s recent retelling of the early days of the Covid pandemic and Boris Johnson’s government, penned by Michael Winterbottom.

Passenger, which launched when that deal was struck three-and-a-half years ago, will become a fully-owned Fremantle label, sitting within Christian Vesper’s Global Drama division. The deal is one of a spate Fremantle has unveiled in recent weeks.

Richard Brown (left) & Andrea Scrosati

Brown will continue running Passenger while taking on a creative role within Vesper’s team, helping drive Fremantle’s efforts in the development of both TV and film and building up talent relationships. His New York, LA and London-based...

“House of the Dragon” star Fabien Frankel plots to steal an expensive painting alongside Greta Bellamacina (“This England”) in a trailer for their new art heist feature “Venice at Dawn.”

Frankel plays Dixon while Bellamacina is Sally. After the duo have a drunken encounter at a bar, they come up with a plan to swipe a costly piece of art from Sally’s ex-boyfriend Stephen (“After Life” star Tom Basden). “There’s this huge house and he owns this painting which is worth millions of pounds – money, money, money,” Sally tells Dixon. “Tomorrow the house is going to be empty, the painting will be there and we could steal it.” Naturally high-jinks ensue.

YouTube turned actor Tanya Burr (“Twist”) co-stars as Stephen’s best friend while actor and director Celyn Jones (“The Almond and the Seahorse”) leads a Greek chorus of bumbling detectives as Detective Symonds.

Fabien Frankel, Greta Bellamacina...

Amber Anderson, Greta Bellamacina and Tamsin Egerton can be seen bonding in wedding dresses alongside co-stars Jessica Plummer, Josette Simon and Bebe Cave in first look images from upcoming feature “Tell That to the Winter Sea.”

Anderson (“Peaky Blinders”) and Bellamacina (“This England”) star in the film as Scarlett and Jo, two teenage dance students whose intense friendship blossoms into a romantic one before running its course. But when the duo reconvene decades later on the eve of Jo’s wedding – to a man – it turns out deep feelings still remain.

In another scene from the film, which was directed by Jacyln Bethany, the group, still clad in wedding dresses, enjoy a candle-lit dinner.

Meanwhile Jo and Scarlett’s relationship is also explored in flashback sequences, one of which sees a brunette Bellamacina holding hands with Anderson, both wearing their school uniforms.

Egerton (“Grimsby”), Plummer (“The Girl Before”), Simon (“Anatomy of A Scandal...

The crisis of leadership Britain has been plunged into over recent years merits sustained study as a cautionary tale. But it demands deeper and sharper analysis than is available in “This England,” a curiously indifferent six-part miniseries notionally centred on former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the initial coronavirus outbreak, currently limping out on Sky’s U.K. arm.

When Winterbottom’s Revolution Films announced the project (originally titled “This Sceptred Isle”) last year – with Kenneth Branagh unveiled as the project’s Johnson – speculation was rife. Would the series be an ensemble satire, along the lines of Winterbottom’s rambunctious “24 Hour Party People”? Or an artfully sober inquiry, in the vein of the director’s Amanda Knox-inspired “The Face of an Angel”? In fact, it’s neither: what we’ve got is a hurriedly assembled primetime procedural that undermines its claim to rigorous accuracy from the off...

Dir: Anne Fletcher. Starring: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Whitney Peak, Sam Richardson, Doug Jones, Belissa Escobedo, Lilia Buckingham, Tony Hale, Hannah Waddingham. Cert PG, 104 minutes

Hocus Pocus has had quite an afterlife. It’s been 29 years since a virgin first lit the black flame candle, resurrecting a trio of Salem witches and igniting the breathless disdain of film critics. An overboiling cauldron of garish performances, baroque plotting, and immortal cats, the 1993 Disney comedy was called “an unholy mess” by The New York Times, while the venerable critic Roger Ebert said the film was “desperately in need of self-discipline”. But this October the Disney-run US channel Freeform will air Hocus Pocus 13 times across 31 days. One studio’s mess is a wholly owned subsidiary’s black magic.

It’s on the back of these cultishly popular reruns that Disney has awarded the Sanderson Sisters a sequel, to be released...

Dir: Anne Fletcher. Starring: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Whitney Peak, Sam Richardson, Doug Jones, Belissa Escobedo, Lilia Buckingham, Tony Hale, Hannah Waddingham. Cert PG, 104 minutes

Hocus Pocus has had quite an afterlife. It’s been 29 years since a virgin first lit the black flame candle, resurrecting a trio of Salem witches and igniting the breathless disdain of film critics. An overboiling cauldron of garish performances, baroque plotting, and immortal cats, the 1993 Disney comedy was called “an unholy mess” by The New York Times, while the venerable critic Roger Ebert said the film was “desperately in need of self-discipline”. But this October the Disney-run US channel Freeform will air Hocus Pocus 13 times across 31 days. One studio’s mess is a wholly owned subsidiary’s black magic.

It’s on the back of these cultishly popular reruns that Disney has awarded the Sanderson Sisters a sequel, to be released...

With an ego as gargantuan as his obviously is, it must be highly flattering to Boris Johnson that no less a figure than Sir Kenneth Branagh was chosen to play him in This England, Sky’s new drama about the now former Pm and the Covid crisis. More, still, that considerable time and energy has been spent on turning Branagh into a passable physical replica of Johnson.

A frequent problem in dramatisations such as these is whether the main players should basically be doing impressions of a well-known real-life figure, or rather play them more as they might a fictional figure, say Hamlet or Mr Darcy. In the case of This England, they’ve opted for the impersonations, with some uncanny likenesses. As Matt Hancock, Andrew Buchan reproduces every tiny intonation and mannerism of the hapless former health secretary so unnervingly well that it is as if they’d actually...

Stranger Things fans claim to have spotted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in the background of a scene in the latest season.

Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between the years 1978 and 1991. He was recently the subject of the Netflix true crime bio-series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, in which he was portrayed by Evan Peters.

Multiple TikTok users have shared a clip from the first episode of Stranger Things 4, in which Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) can be seen getting off a school bus.

A number of kids walk by her in the background, including one young man who resembles Dahmer both in physicality and attire.

However, while Stranger Things has incorperated certain real life historical elements into its story and world, it is unlikely that the background actor was deliberately meant to look like Dahmer.

Stranger Things is set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in the mid-1980s,...

Do you remember the coronavirus pandemic? Chances are you do, firstly because it happened very recently and secondly because it was very, very horrible. The collective trauma of the event was unprecedented since the Second World War. With that in mind, here comes the show that precisely nobody was asking for: This England. Dominic Cummings yelling about Brexit! Dramatisations of people dying in the ICU!! Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson!!!

For all that This England (Sky Atlantic) sets out to be a panoptic view of the early months of the crisis, there’s a blonde tousled elephant in the room. Even if unintentional, the show is all about Boris Johnson, and the great problem with Branagh’s performance is that it’s simultaneously a fairly poor impression and an enormously distracting one. He paces and preens and the audience is constantly reminded that this is supposed to be Boris Johnson.

Andrew Buchan is not getting political.

This is despite the actor, who played Andrew Parker Bowles in The Crown, taking on the role of Matt Hancock, alongside Kenneth Branagh’s Boris Johnson, in Sky’s This England. This impartiality is both by edict of the show’s publicity department – which has forbidden questions about politics – and the actor himself. “I’m definitely not one of those people who sits down at a dinner party and opens up the chat with political debate,” he tells me. “I’m not that guy.”

Perhaps that’s not what you’d expect to hear from an actor who cut his teeth in the BBC’s Westminster drama Party Animals, starred in Sky One’s Cabinet Office thriller Cobra and now brings his chops to Michael Winterbottom’s dramatisation of the early months of the Covid-19 crisis. Yet for this character, he thinks his indifference...

British actress Ophelia Lovibond, who stars in HBO comedy Minx, says the idea of working without intimacy coordinators on set these days is “unthinkable.”

Lovibond, who plays Joyce in the tale of a feminist magazine being launched in 1970s Los Angeles and has to include naked men in the mix for funding by a porn publisher – told The Times an intimacy coordinator was on set at all times: “It’s unthinkable, really, that we didn’t always have them — like seatbelts.”

Her view contrasts with that of Game of Thrones star Sean Bean who recently said he thought the presence of an intimacy coordinator took away the “spice” of sex scenes.

Lovibond said, “I think they’re spicy enough. It is a strange experience to be whipping off your clothes in front of boom operators and script supervisors.”

As it transpires there are no sex scenes in Minx, which has...

Drama commissioners Gabriel Silver and Liz Lewin and production head Amanda Wilkie-Sweeney are leaving.

Drama commissioners Gabriel Silver and Liz Lewin and production head Amanda Wilkie-Sweeney are leaving Sky Studios, Screen’s sister site Broadcast has learned.

It is believed all three have irons in the fire in terms of new roles, though the details are not known.

The trio follow Preethi Mavahalli out of the pay-tv provider’s drama department, who joined Ben Stephenson’s Poison Pen earlier this week.

Lewin and Wilkie-Sweeney resigned over the summer, while Silver’s departure was communicated to staff earlier this week.

Sky Studio...

British broadcasters are reviewing their TV schedules daily in the lead up to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II next Monday, striking a balance between tribute programing and some shows that were previously due to air.

Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday aged 96 and the country is in mourning, with tributes pouring in from across the globe and multiple events canceled.

All broadcasters told Deadline that they are taking a day-to-day approach to their scheduling and are issuing updates every 24 hours. Schedules are expected to return almost completely to normal following the funeral, which will likely be one of the most-watched TV broadcasts of all time.

BBC One’s daily offering today (September 12) still leans towards tribute while BBC Two is almost back to normal.

The new King Charles III has just entered Westminster Hall and BBC One is showing Westminster Tributes to his mother from politicians. The afternoon will be...

Kenneth Branagh has hit back at claims that his forthcoming drama about Boris Johnson and the Covid pandemic is “too soon”.

The actor and filmmaker plays the former British prime minister in This England, written by Michael Winterbottom and Kieron Quirke.

However, the five-part series’ subject matter has raised a few eyebrows, with some questioning the need for such a series while the pandemic is still ongoing.

“There will be those who say it’s too soon,” Branagh said, in an interview with The Times.

“I think these events are unusual and part of what we must do is acknowledge them. It might allow people to process a little of what went on. Any way of understanding it better is important.”

Winterbottom also claimed that it would be “strange” to live through a pandemic without being able to dramatise it.

Elsewhere in the interview, Branagh discussed his portrayal of Johnson,...

Kenneth Branagh has defended upcoming political drama This England, in which he stars as British former prime minister Boris Johnson, which many people have slammed as “too soon.”

The six-hour series details how the UK government addressed the first chaotic months of the coronavirus and national lockdown. Critics of the forthcoming show say it’s too soon to depict such a drama, with its huge death toll leaving hundreds of thousands of Britons still bereaved and economically vulnerable.

To those, Branagh says in an interview with The Times, “I think these events are unusual and part of what we must do is acknowledge them. It might allow people to process a little of what went on. Any way of understanding it better is important.”

Oscar winner Branagh spent two hours every day in makeup, transforming himself into British former premier Boris Johnson but deliberately chose not to reveal himself to...

ITV and Indigo Television have decided to reschedule this year’s National Television Awards to respect the UK’s period of national mourning.

The ceremony will now take place on Thursday, October 13, live from the Ovo Arena Wembley. It had been due to take place next week on September 15 at 7:30pm.

A date has yet to be set for the late Queen’s funeral but there have been many suggestions in the media that it could be on Monday, September 19.

Broadcasters are ripping up schedules following the monarch’s passing. Shows and events are also being rescheduled. Sky today moved its Boris Johnson drama This England by one week to late September. The UK Football Association today cancelled all Premier League and Efl soccer this weekend.

Line Of Duty and Coronation Street both had big nights at the 26th National Television Awards. BBC One’s crime drama and ITV...

Sky is shifting the TX date of its Boris Johnson TV series This England following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

In order to respect the period of mourning, the broadcaster has moved the launch date from September 21 to September 28. We understand there won’t be any edits needed to the drama in light of the Queen’s passing.

The anticipated series, which will star Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh, follows the tumultuous events surrounding former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government in the face of the first wave of the global pandemic. The six-episode drama is set inside the halls of government and interwoven with stories from around the country. While she is no way the focus of the drama, Queen Elizabeth II is understood to feature in the series.

A date has yet to be set for the Queen’s funeral but there have been many suggestions...

As the nights draw in and autumn arrives, some of the year’s hottest TV shows hit our screens, and drama is no exception.

In amongst the new series of cult reality shows like The Great British Bake Off, Strictly Come Dancing, Drag Race UK and I’m a Celebrity, UK TV networks start a fierce competition for the must-watch autumn dramas that will get everyone talking, leaving us with an eye-watering number of release dates to look forward to.

Here are some of the highlights from the UK’s autumn 2022 drama releases.

The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself

Netflix’s Spooky Season line-up includes this eight-part drama based on the Half Bad trilogy of YA books by Sally Greene. It tells the story of sixteen-year-old Nathan (Jay Lycurgo), the illegitimate son of the world’s most dangerous witch, who has spent his life being monitored for signs he...

When it was announced that Michael Winterbottom would be making a series about the first pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2022, many assumed—or perhaps hoped—that the politically committed director would be holding the British government to account. However, speaking to Deadline at the 38th Sarajevo Film Festival, 25 years after his acclaimed war drama Welcome To Sarajevo screened there, Winterbottom revealed that, in common with many of his fictionalized but factual feature films, the six-part Sky series This England , which debuts 21 September, will be an ensemble piece, taking a bird’s-eye view of the British authorities’ initial response to Covid.

“Boris is just one strand that runs through it,” he said, “because it’s really a mosaic of lots of different stories. The most enjoyable part was the research, really, because we started it straight after the first wave, in June 2020. We got to talk to lots of scientists,...