Stitchers

Israel’s Keshet International (KI) looks to have achieved another major breakthrough in the scripted formats sector. After In Treatment, Homeland and The A Word (all based on Keshet formats), it has now teamed up with HBO in the US on a drama about the true-life kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014.

The 10-episode series is the first project to be produced for HBO by its former boss Michael Lombardo, who has a production deal with the network. The creative team behind the show, which will be filmed in Israel, is headed by Hagai Levi and Noah Stollman.

“HBO has always been a home to me. I’m so thrilled to work with them again, and regroup with my good friends from Keshet,” said Levi, who also created hit series The Affair for Showtime.

HBO president Casey Bloys added: “We’re excited to work with Keshet and this talented and creative group led by Hagai Levi. We look forward to sharing this important story with our subscribers.”

The series centres on the disappearance and subsequent search for the three teenagers amid escalating tension and conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. It will be distributed internationally by KI. Avi Nir, the head of KI’s parent company Keshet Media Group, said: “We are thrilled to partner with HBO, the ultimate quality TV powerhouse, and to bring together Israel’s finest in TV and film, led by Hagai Levi, Noah Stollman and Joseph Cedar [the director of the as-yet-unnamed series]. We are all ready for the challenging journey on which this extraordinary story will take us.”

Iceland's Réttur is being adapted for NBC — Iceland’s Réttur is being adapted for NBC

Another interesting story on the format front is NBC’s decision to pilot Infamous, a legal drama based on a 2009 Icelandic series called Réttur. The new version is being written/executive produced by Eli Attie (House) and executive produced by the team behind This Is Us (John Requa and Glenn Ficarra).

Infamous centres on a hotshot attorney who is jailed for a murder he doesn’t remember, and believes he didn’t commit. Six years later, he’s released on a technicality and tries to juggle his day job with finding out what actually happened to put him in jail. The original, created by Sigurjón Kjartansson, ran for three seasons.

Still in the US, ABC is piloting a new series called Protect & Serve. The series centres on a city struggling to cope with the unrest that is stirred up when the police shoot an unarmed man. The show was created by Barbie Kligman and Aaron Kaplan, with Kligman and her husband Billy Malone writing the script.

This seems to be a popular theme for US TV drama at the moment, reflecting the number of high-profile incidents in which controversial police shootings have inspired riots and retaliation. Fox, for example, is working on Shots Fired, a drama that explores the aftermath of racially charged shootings in a Tennessee town.

Dynamic Television has taken the rights to Hulu's East Los High — Dynamic Television has taken the rights to Hulu’s East Los High

Also within the ABC family, cable channel Freeform has commissioned a third season of drama series Stitchers. The show hasn’t been a huge hit for Freeform (season two averaged 387,000 per episode) but will provide some stability as Freeform’s top two shows Pretty Little Liars and Switched At Birth move inexorably towards extinction. For those unfamiliar with the show, it focuses on a female hacker who joins a government agency that investigates murders by hacking into the brains of the deceased.

Turning to Europe, UFA Fiction and ZDF began production this week on their new miniseries drama Heaven & Hell – Martin Luther (working title). Marking 500 years since the Reformation, the series tells the story of Martin Luther, the visionary reformer and one of the most important religious figures in history.

Filming commenced in Prague and the surrounding areas and will continue until early December. Executive producers Benjamin Benedict and Joachim Kosack of UFA Fiction said: “The radical perspective on those early days of the Reformation that Heaven & Hell – Martin Luther enables us to portray human inconsistencies, depths and conflicts. This is a story of a group of people alive 500 years ago whose internal convictions led them to forge a new path – one that ultimately changed the world.”

The show is the latest in a line of big-budget coproductions that have tackled pre-20th century European historical subjects. Others include Borgia, Versailles, 1864, Victoria, Maximilian and Marie de Bourgogne, Medici: Masters of Florence and the BBC’s literary adaptations such as Wolf Hall and War & Peace (and the in-development Les Miserables and A Place of Greater Safety) . The new Martin Luther project will be distributed by FremantleMedia International.

There has also been a lot of movement in drama acquisition and distribution business this week. Channel 4 in the UK, for example, has acquired the rights to ABC comedy Black-ish for its digital channel E4.

Dynamic Television, meanwhile, has acquired the global rights to Hulu original series East Los High, which tells the story of a group of inner-city high-school students in LA. Dynamic managing partner Daniel March said: “The series is a game-changer that has completely shattered the bar in the genre. This is a high-powered, emotional drama that speaks to the most sought-after youth audience by tackling everyday challenges.”

Also this week, German, UK and French on-demand services have picked up 12-part Norwegian drama Young & Promising from Nevision-owned distributor About Premium Content. The show, which follows a group of aspirational young urban women, will be streamed on ARD/ZDF-owned Funk in Germany, Channel 4’s Walter Presents in the UK and CanalPlay in France.

Laurent Boissel, joint CEO and co-founder at APC, said: “VoD platforms and broadcasters continue to look for quality drama targeted at millennials. With its strong female leads and a tone that resonates with our time, Young & Promising will appeal to this audience.”

Young & Promising has been acquired by German, UK and French on-demand services

Still in the world of streamers, US-based Acorn is partnering the BBC and All3Media International on Close to the Enemy, a Stephen Poliakoff drama set in a bomb-damaged London hotel in the aftermath of the Second World War. The drama, which Poliakoff discussed during last year’s C21 Drama Summit in London, follows an intelligence officer captain whose last task for the Army is to ensure that a captured German scientist starts working for the British RAF on developing the jet engine.

There’s also good news this week for Dori Media Group, which has licensed acclaimed series El Marginal to French pay TV channel Canal+. Nadav Palti, CEO of Dori Media, said: “Canal+ is a premium pay TV channel that provides its subscribers with access to the highest-quality content. The sale of El Marginal is, therefore, a ringing endorsement of the quality of the show.”

The series focuses on the story of Miguel Dimarco, an ex-cop who enters the San Onofre prison under a false identity as a convict. His mission is to infiltrate a gang of prisoners who have organised the kidnapping of a judge’s daughter. Miguel must discover the whereabouts of the girl and set her free. He meets the objective but someone betrays him, leaving him behind bars with no witnesses who know his true identity.

tagged in: ABC, About Premium Content, Black-ish, Canal+, Casey Bloys, Channel 4, Dori Media Group, Dynamic Television, East Los High, El Marginal, Freeform, Hagai Levi, HBO, Heaven & Hell – Martin Luther, Infamous, Keshet International, NBC, Protect & Serve, Stitchers, UFA Fiction, Young & Promising, ZDF

Egyptian drama Tut has just launched on Spike

Viacom’s portfolio of adult-targeted cable channels doesn’t look like an obvious place to find original scripted shows. But, keen not to be left behind in the drama arms race, Viacom brands such as MTV, Spike, CMT and BET are spending heavily on the genre.

MTV’s investment in The Shannara Chronicles and Scream is regarded by many as the channel’s biggest editorial shake-up since it launched in 1981. And now Spike – already committed to Tut – has unveiled plans for a major increase in the number of series it has on air.

In an announcement last week, Spike said its new development slate spans “a wide range of genres and periods, all of it character-driven material set in unique, compelling worlds. These include series about an occupied American heartland during World War III, a family living in a world without privacy, the Gilded Age pioneers of criminal defence law, and medical researchers pushing the boundaries of ethics and legality.”

Sharon Levy, exec VP of original series at Spike, added: “Our slate is indicative of our goal to be a network that creates high-quality and dynamic scripted entertainment with a distinctive edge and point of view.”

The title that has attracted most attention is World War III, which imagines the US as an occupied territory. This is a popular theme at the moment, with titles such as Occupied, SS-GB and The Man in the High Castle also in the works at the moment.

Spike’s project centres on “one man with a troubled past (who) will galvanise a resistance movement, calling upon ordinary citizens to become the extraordinary heroes of WWIII.”

X-Men director Bryan Singer is exec producing Spike's World War III — X-Men director Bryan Singer is exec producing Spike’s World War III

The series is executive produced by Hollywood director Bryan Singer and written by creators Aaron and Matthew Benay. Singer’s involvement is particularly noteworthy, given his strong track record that includes House, Dirty Sexy Money and the X-Men movie franchise.

Spike’s other scripted shows in development include psychological horror series Bad Medicine, dystopian thriller Secret America and Mr In Between, which focuses on a high-stakes courier who traffics sensitive information between people for whom privacy is a matter of life and death, and which perhaps echoes the Transporter franchise.

There is also a period drama called Hummel & Howe. Set in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century in New York City, this series showcases the lives of William Howe and Abraham Hummel – two criminals desperate to escape their past who become the greatest criminal defence attorneys in American history. The series is written by Andy Bellin, whose main credits to date are the movies Trust and Lovelace.

Meanwhile, Spike will be waiting anxiously on the ratings for the first episode of Tut, which aired yesterday (July 19). Early indications from IMDb are that the audience was lukewarm about the opening episode, with a modest 7.8 rating based on 112 users, but we’ll get a clearer picture when the overnights come in.

Across the pond, indie producer Bentley Productions has been asked by broadcaster ITV to make Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, a two-hour special based on a novel by Neil Spring.

Commissioned by Steve November and Victoria Fea, the story begins when a fraudulent ghost hunter is asked to investigate the haunting of the home of a local politician, whose wife will be committed to an asylum if he fails to succeed.

ITV's Harry Price: Ghost Hunter is being adapted from a novel by Neil Spring — ITV’s Harry Price: Ghost Hunter is being adapted from a novel by Neil Spring

All3Media-owned Bentley is best known as the producer of crime drama mega-hit Midsomer Murders (which has run for 17 seasons and been sold to 225 territories), so it will hope Ghost Hunter can inherit some of that show’s longevity. The task of writing the TV feature has fallen to Jack Lothian, whose credits include Doc Martin, Death in Paradise and Ashes to Ashes.

While various movies have been loosely based on William Shakespeare’s life (Shakespeare In Love and Anonymous spring to mind), the Bard rarely comes up as the subject of a TV series. Now former eOne executive Patrice Théroux and producer Leif Bristow plan to change that with a six-part miniseries about the playwright’s attempt to balance his work life in London with family life in Stratford-upon-Avon. Writer Shane Connaughton (My Left Foot) has been signed up to pen the series, which is called The Family Shakespeare.

In terms of renewals and pickups, one interesting story this week is that Seven Network in Australia has acquired forthcoming US series Heroes Reborn, a continuation of popular NBC sci-fi drama Heroes. Seven also aired the original series between 2008 and 2010, starting in a primetime slot on Seven but ending its life on digital sister channel 7Two. The plan is for the new series to come into Seven’s schedule as quickly as possible after the launch in the US, which is targeted for late September. Other new US dramas heading to Seven at around the same time are The Player and Quantico.

Meanwhile, US renewal news includes ABC Family’s decision to give a second season to Stitchers, an original drama series in which a young woman is recruited into a covert government agency to be ‘stitched’ into the minds of the recently deceased, using their memories to investigate murders and decipher mysteries that otherwise would have gone to the grave. The show is doing well among young female viewers – always a big positive for cable channels.

Stitchers performs well among young female viewers — Stitchers, which has just been given a second season, performs well among young female viewers

Karey Burke, ABC Family exec VP of programming and development, said: “Fans are enjoying the camaraderie of the Stitchers team and a lead character who is unapologetically smart, focused and a great role model to young women.”

On the corporate front, this week’s big story is that Israeli firm Keshet International has opened a studio in Los Angeles that will oversee the development, production and sale of scripted shows in the US. Former Fox director of programming Peter Traugott has been named president of scripted at the company, which will be called Keshet Studios. He will report to Keshet International CEO Alon Shtruzman. Also on board is Rachel Kaplan as executive VP.

Following on from the success of Keshet’s Prisoners of War, which was remade as Homeland in the US, Shtruzman says: “Keshet Studios was a natural progression for our expanding business and we are thrilled to have an official home base in the States with executives who share our programming sensibility. Peter and Rachel both have tremendous instincts for developing and producing compelling and innovative scripted TV. Coupled with (Keshet CEO) Avi Nir’s creative vision and the prolific Israeli-international pipeline, Keshet Studios is set to significantly grow our US slate.”

tagged in: ABC Family, Bad Medicine, Bryan Singer, Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, Heroes Reborn, Hummel & Howe, ITV, Karey Burke, Keshet Studios, Mr In Between, MTV, Scream, Secret America, Sharon Levy, Spike, Stitchers, The Family Shakespeare, The Shannara Chronicles, Viacom, World War III

Tag Archives: Stitchers

Israeli and Icelandic formats crack US

Spike leads sharp increase in Viacom drama