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The BBC has announced First Day On Earth, a new ten-part drama from I May Destroy You creator Michaela Coel

Michaela Coel came to prominence in 2017 when she wrote and starred in the quirky E4 sitcom Chewing Gum. Her next project was the searing BBC drama I May Destroy You, which chronicled a woman’s experience of sexual assault. The show won a plethora of awards, including the BAFTA for Best Actress, and Coel became the first black woman to win the Emmy for Putstanding Writing in a Limited Series.

The BBC has now announced Coel’s new drama, First Day On Earth, a co-production with HBO.

The synopsis reads as follows:

British novelist Henri (Michaela Coel) is stuck. Work has dried up, her relationship is going nowhere. So when she’s offered a job on a film in Ghana, West Africa – her parents’ homeland, where her estranged father lives...

Michaela Coel’s next major TV series will be crash-landing stateside: the actress is set to create and star in First Day on Earth for HBO and BBC, TVLine has learned.

In the 10-part series, Coel will star as a British novelist named Henri. Reads the official description: “Work has dried up, her relationship is going nowhere. So, when she’s offered a job on a film in Ghana, West Africa — her parents’ homeland where her estranged father lives — she can’t resist the chance to reconnect with him and the country of her heritage. But when she arrives, neither...

Michaela Coel is returning to HBO (by way of the BBC) with her new drama series “First Day on Earth.” She’ll again star in and write the series, and will executive produce alongside “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong, Phil Clarke, and Roberto Troni for Various Artists Limited (Val), in association with A24.

A24 is the newcomer here; Coel, HBO, the BBC, and Val did “I May Destroy You” together.

“First Day on Earth” is a 10-episode series following British novelist Henri (Coel). She’s stuck — work has dried up and her relationship is going nowhere, per the logline. Henri is offered a job on a film in Ghana, West Africa, her parents’ homeland and where her estranged father lives. She jumps at the chance to reconnect — both with him and the country itself.

It doesn’t quite go as planned.

The synopsis continues: “When she arrives neither the job nor...

I May Destroy You creator, director and star Michaela Coel is reteaming with HBO and the BBC for her next series.

The two outlets will co-produce First Day on Earth, which Coel created and will star in as a British writer named Henri who takes a job on a movie filming in Ghana, her parents’ homeland. Various Artists Limited, which counts Succession creator Jesse Armstrong among its principals (and which produced I May Destroy You) and A24 are also behind the new series.

“I am delighted to be working with Val, HBO and the BBC again, and to partner with A24; thanks to all of their combined taste, care and expertise, I feel our show is in great hands,” Coel said in a statement. “First Day on Earth is another very personal story for me which I hope will engage viewers from all over the world, and I can’t...

Michaela Coel is expanding her relationship with HBO. The “I May Destroy You” creator’s latest project is moving forward with HBO and BBC co-producing the upcoming “First Day on Earth.”

The 10-episode drama will star Coel, who will also write the series and serve as its executive producer alongside Jesse Armstrong (“Succession”), as well as Phil Clarke and Roberto Troni for Various Artists Limited, in association with A24. Jo McClellan will also EP for the BBC, while Piers Wenger will EP for A24. Filming is scheduled to begin next year.

The series follows a British novelist named Henri (Coel) who feels stuck in her life. When she’s offered a job on a film in Ghana, West Africa, she says yes, hoping to connect to her parents’ homeland, reconnect with her estranged father and rediscover herself. But when she arrives in this new land, neither her job nor her...

Michaela Coel is set to star in, write, and executive produce a new drama series that is being co-produced by HBO and the BBC.

Titled “First Day on Earth,” the series also boasts “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong among its executive producers. Phil Clarke and Roberto Troni also executive produce for Armstrong’s Various Artists Limited, as does Jo McClellan for the BBC and Piers Wenger for A24. Filming on the series will begin in 2025.

“I am delighted to be working with Val, HBO and the BBC again, and to partner with A24; thanks to all of their combined taste, care and expertise, I feel our show is in great hands,” Coel said. “‘First Day on Earth’ is another very personal story for me which I hope will engage viewers from all over the world, and I can’t wait for audiences to go on Henri’s journey with her.”

The...

I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel is teaming up with HBO and the BBC on her next drama series.

Coel is writing and starring in First Day On Earth, a ten-part series that she describes as “another very personal story for me”.

It comes four years after I May Destroy You launched on the Wbd network and the British public broadcaster.

Coel will star as British novelist Henri, who is stuck. Work has dried up, her relationship is going nowhere. So, when she’s offered a job on a film in Ghana, West Africa – her parents’ homeland, where her estranged father lives – she can’t resist the chance to reconnect with him and the country of her heritage. But when she arrives neither the job nor her father turn out the way she expected, and soon Henri has to deal with danger and hypocrisy, form new friendships, lose her illusions,...

Michaela Coel will write, star in, and executive produce the 10-part series First Day On Earth with filming scheduled to start next year.

It will be produced by Phil Clarke and Roberto Troni’s Various Artists Limited for the BBC in a co-production with HBO, and made in association with A24.

First Day On Earth follows a UK novelist, played by Coel, a 2017 Screen Star of Tomorrow, who relocates to Ghana, West Africa - her parents’ homeland - to work on a film and reconnect with her estranged father. On arrival, neither the job nor her father turns out how she expected.

Michaela Coel will write, star in, and executive produce the upcoming series First Day On Earth with filming scheduled to start next year.

The ten-part series is a Various Artists Limited production for the BBC in a co-production with HBO, and made in association with A24.

First Day On Earth follows British novelist Henri who relocates to Ghana, West Africa - her parents’ homeland - to work on a film and reconnect with her estranged father. Upon her arrival, neither the job nor her father turns out how she expected, and Henri must now navigate life and her sense of identity.

Exclusive: Michaela Coel is no longer developing a series with links to her smash BBC/HBO hit I May Destroy You.

Three years ago, then-BBC drama director Piers Wenger revealed that Coel was working on a show that had links to the I May Destroy You universe. “It’s at relatively early stages, but I wanted to let the fans of I May Destroy You know that there is a new show coming along,” Wenger said at the time.

But speaking to Deadline last week, I May Destroy You EP Phil Clarke said Coel had toyed with various ideas for what was loosely termed “I May Destroy You 2,” before deciding against going further. Coel has previously ruled out a second series of I May Destroy You in the traditional sense.

“When Piers went public, we were all talking about it,” said Clarke. “Those were Michaela’s thoughts as well.

Exclusive: At the 2021 Edinburgh TV Festival, the BBC and Netflix unveiled what the pair described as a landmark five-year disability partnership that would unearth a new generation of shows helmed by disabled talent.

But more than half of the partnership’s five-year time period has now elapsed and not one show has been revealed.

In recent months, sources from the UK drama and disabled TV communities have begun questioning the partnership, getting in touch with Deadline unprompted to query why a tie-up that was unveiled with such fanfare has so far failed to bear fruit.

“It’s slightly bizarre,” said one professional connected with disability programs. “I’ve heard nothing from anyone to be honest. No one can get a definitive answer.”

The partnership came in the wake of a blistering Edinburgh TV Festival MacTaggart broadside from Help writer Jack Thorne, who slammed the UK TV industry for “totally and utterly” failing disabled people.

The BBC has unveiled its biggest drama slate in years featuring a TV version of James Graham play Dear England starring Joseph Fiennes from The Crown producer Left Bank, Sex Education star Aimee Lou Wood’s debut writing project and a Rebecca Hall-starrer from Poor Things maker Element.

Unveiled at a glitz London do for press and producers, the 12-strong roster, which features some of Britain’s best and brightest talents, is the first from new Drama Director Lindsay Salt, who took over from A24’s Piers Wenger 18 months ago.

Scroll down for the full slate below, which features an adaptation of Sherwood creator Graham’s Dear England about the England soccer manager Gareth Southgate – the play of which has taken London by storm and recently transferred to the West End. Fiennes (The Handmaid’s Tale) will reprise his role as Southgate and Graham will pen the TV version, which...

BBC drama boss Lindsay Salt has candidly floated the notion that the industry has moved from “peak TV to peak caution,” as she details an ambition to “help reshape the drama landscape at a critical time.”

Addressing producers and press for the first time since taking on the nation’s biggest drama commissioning job, Salt reflected on a decade since the phrase “peak TV” first entered the lexicon, raising concerns over “short-termism” and that “the big bets of the boom era are a thing of the past.”

“We’ve seen buyers retreat into cautious commissioning spaces,” said Salt. “The industry as a whole has become – dare I say it – a little fearful.”

Expanding her point, Salt said “financial pressures and commercial imperatives” have led buyers to “default to safe bets.”

She cited “inflation, content and platform saturation, retrenchment and the writers strike” as the key factors leading to “peak caution,...

Hunt is renowned for her vast experience in the UK TV landscape.

In Jay Hunt, the BFI has landed one of the most experienced UK media executives of her generation as its new chair, appointed by the government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Hunt has run three of the UK’s biggest TV channels at the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and also has US streamer experience from leading the European team of Apple TV+.

“Whatever space Jay is working in, she brings incredible energy, spirit and creative rigour to her role,” said Piers Wenger, A24’s Europe head of TV,...

Exclusive: Euphoria producer A24 has turned to a series of self-published, TikTok-famous novels for its latest project out of the UK, Deadline understands.

The independent studio has snapped up the rights to Jessa Hastings’ Magnolia Parks universe books, which went viral on TikTok and have been described as Gossip Girl in high society London.

The Magnolia Parks project is understood to be a reasonable way into development, with A24 close to signing off partnerships for the series. The company declined to comment.

Firmly in A24’s zeitgeisty wheelhouse, the first novel follows the story of beautiful but neurotic London socialite Magnolia Parks and Bj Ballentine, the bad-boy lothario who broke her heart.

Hastings’ second book, Daisy Haites, expands on Magnolia’s world by following fellow London “It Girl” Haites, the heiress to a criminal empire who is desperately pursuing a normal life.

The third and fourth books return to Parks and Haites’ perspectives respectively.

The BBC’s controversial Jimmy Savile drama The Reckoning will be handed its long-awaited premiere in the autumn, while it has unveiled more cast and a first-look image.

Joining Coogan are BAFTA-winner Gemma Jones (Marvellous), Siobhan Finneran (Happy Valley), Mark Lewis Jones (Outlander) and Mark Stanley (Happy Valley).

The BBC has also unveiled a first-look image (top), in which Coogan portraying the posthumously-outed serial sex offender can be seen smoking one of his famous cigars ponderously staring out the window.

Produced by ITV Studios, penned by Neil McKay and EP’d by Jeff Pope, the four-part series will trace Savile’s life through the decades. He was one of the BBC’s most popular presenters when alive but in death was outed as using his involvement in multiple organizations, such as the BBC, hospitals, prisons, and charities, to legitimise himself, forging friendships in showbusiness, politics, journalism, the Catholic Church and...

Twelve months ago, the UK industry drew a sharp intake of breath when Euphoria and Moonlight outfit A24 lured Piers Wenger and Rose Garnett to launch the studio’s London-based production division.

The splashy double hire of the BBC’s Director of Drama and Film, respectively, was seen by many as a major coup for A24 and a significant loss for the UK’s leading broadcaster.

Wenger and Garnett had spent the previous decade playing an influential role in making the UK a creative powerhouse, greenlighting significant productions and blooding future stars while at the BBC and Channel 4. I May Destroy You, Normal People, The Souvenir, The Favourite, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri were all commissioned or developed on their watch. Steve McQueen and Michaela Coel are among the duo’s high-profile admirers.

But despite the initial UK shakeup and A24’s subsequent Oscar glory with Everything Everywhere All At Once,...

Exclusive: The first new A24 project to emerge since the studio’s record-breaking Oscar haul last week is international TV series Young Mungo, which is being adapted by Scottish-American author Douglas Stuart from his acclaimed novel.

The series, about the dangerous first love of two working class men in Glasgow, is being shepherded by A24’s international heads Piers Wenger and Rose Garnett, and marks a coup for the pair given the stellar reviews and buzz around its author.

Published last year, Young Mungo is the second novel from Stuart after Booker prize-winner Shuggie Bain, which Euphoria and Everything Everywhere All At Once producer A24 is currently making into a series with the BBC. A broadcaster has yet to be set on Young Mungo.

The story follows Protestant Mungo and Catholic James who live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates where young...

Exclusive: Sam Brown vividly recalls her visceral reaction to Steve Coogan. The BAFTA-winning actor was fresh from shooting a scene when he walked across a Cheshire graveyard in her direction.

With lightning-white hair, makeup, and in full costume, Coogan was unmistakably the image of Jimmy Savile, the BBC presenter who repeatedly abused Brown when she was just a child. Brown arrived at the encounter determined to face the specter of her late tormenter, but nothing could prepare her for the “powerful” jolt that shot through her body as Coogan approached.

“As he was walking towards me, in my head I was thinking, ‘No, go away.’ I kept thinking, ‘Go away.’ Seemingly this wasn’t kept in my head. I was saying all of this [out loud] and didn’t realize I was bloody saying it. I was so embarrassed,” she remembers.

Brown was one of a number of Savile survivors welcomed onto the set of The Reckoning,...

BBC Drama Director Lindsay Salt has assembled her commissioning team with a triple hire including the EP on Candice Carty-Williams’ Champion and a former Doctor Who script editor.

Danielle Scott-Haughton and Nick Lambon join as BBC Drama Commissioning Editors, while Sami El-Hadi becomes Head of Development, joining from Ackley Bridge producer The Forge.

The trio join a new-look team that has been hit by a raft of exits over the past few months since Drama Director Piers Wenger left to join A24, including Ben Irving, who moved to Fifth Season, Manda Levin, Tom Lazenby and Tommy Bulfin.

Levin is freelancing with the Netflix drama commissioning team and Lazenby has joined Wenger at A24.

Scott-Haughton joins the BBC from Balloon Entertainment, where she has most recently been EP on Champion, the BBC and Netflix’s upcoming musical drama series from Queenie author Carty-Williams.

Lambon is a freelance script editor whose past...

Exclusive: HBO Max, the BBC and A24 have won the rights to co-develop one of the most highly-anticipated British debuts of the coming year – Slay in Your Lane scribe Yomi Adegoke’s The List.

In what Deadline understands was a highly-competitive situation that attracted the interest of some of the UK’s top drama production houses, A24’s Piers Wenger and Rose Garnett-led international team won out and is in early-stage development on a TV adaptation for the British public broadcaster and U.S. streamer. Adegoke is creating and exec producing.

Due to be published in July, The List follows Ola Olajide, a high-profile journalist at Womxxxn magazine about to marry the love of her life, Michael. The couple seem to have it all but one morning they wake up to the same message: “Oh my god, have you seen The List?”

Adegoke is a columnist, journalist, former Forbes...

Exclusive: Help and The End of the F***ing World producer Jenny Frayn has joined the BBC drama commissioning team on a temporary basis.

Deadline understands Frayn joined recently to work on certain existing titles and some upcoming, mostly from the slate of Peaky Blinders producer Tommy Bulfin, who is departing soon.

She is a well-regarded British drama producer who has produced a number of critically-acclaimed shows over the past few years including Help – Jack Thorne’s Stephen Graham and Jodie Comer-starring Channel 4 drama about the Covid-19 care home crisis. The TV movie won two BAFTAs and the International Emmy Award for Best TV Movie or Miniseries.

Frayn’s other credits include Channel 4/Netflix breakout The End of the F***ing World and she also has experience working across BBC shows including The Victim and Peter Bowker’s The A Word.

She joins at a time of change for Lindsay Salt’s BBC drama department.

“Shuggie Bain,” the Booker Prize-winning debut novel from Douglas Stuart, is set to be adapted as a BBC drama by A24.

The book centers around a mother-son relationship in Glasgow, Scotland, where Shuggie’s mother battles alcoholism while dreaming of the glamorous life she was supposed to have had. Effeminate Shuggie struggles to fit in and finds himself caring for his ailing mother while struggling to be a “normal” boy.

“A heart-breaking story of pride, sexuality, addiction, and love, ‘Shuggie Bain’ is inspired by Douglas Stuart’s own childhood in Thatcher-years Glasgow and is a powerful portrayal of a working-class family with a very important story to tell,” reads the logline.

Stuart will adapt “Shuggie Bain” himself with A24 and BBC drama commissioning editor Gaynor Holmes exec producing. A24 will produce and rep global sales.

The drama is set to shoot in Scotland with further details including cast to be announced at a later date.

First look images have been revealed of the third and purportedly final season of crime drama “Happy Valley.”

The six-part final season, made by Lookout Point for BBC One and BBC iPlayer in co-production with AMC Networks, will see Sarah Lancashire return as Sergeant Catherine Cawood and James Norton as Tommy Lee Royce.

The first images show Lancashire sporting a bloody nose following a police raid while Royce, with a new look, is locked in his prison cell.

Sarah Lancashire as Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Courtesy of BBC)

Siobhan Finneran stars as Catherine’s sister Clare and Rhys Connah as her teenage grandson Ryan.

Also returning are Ishia Bennison as Joyce, Shane Zaza as Shaf, Chord Melodic as Sledge, and Mete Dursun as Gorkem as well as Con O’Neill, George Costigan, Charlie Murphy, Derek Riddell, Karl Davies, Susan Lynch, Rick Warden, Vincent Franklin, Amit Shah, Mark Stanley, and Mollie Winnard.

Joining...

Claudia Yusef expands role to commissioning executive.

BBC Film is revising its editorial team including new hires Kristin Irving and Anu Henriques, under the leadership of director Eva Yates.

Starting from November, Irving will take on the role of commissioning executive, with Henriques as development executive; while head of development Claudia Yusef is expanding her role across development and production, under the new title of commissioning executive.

Irving will join from the British Film Institute (BFI), where she is currently senior production and development executive, and executive produced titles including Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane, Basil Khalil’s A Gaza...

With a week to go before kicking off the London Film Festival, the British Film Institute gathered the U.K.’s titans of cinema to toast the return of moviegoing and celebrate the next generation of filmmakers.

The BFI’s Luminous gala took place at the swanky Londoner hotel in Leicester Square on Thursday evening (Sept. 29), where Variety had exclusive access. The event, which also featured the BFI and Chanel’s inaugural Filmmaker Awards, used to be a biannual bash, but was the first of its kind since the pandemic.

The starry dinner convened around 400 guests, including actors Daisy Ridley, Ncuti Gatwa, Morfydd Clark, Rebel Wilson, Lily James, Malachi Kirby, Dame Joan Collins and Eddie Redmayne; directors Edgar Wright, Gurinder Chadha, Steve McQueen and Terry Gilliam; and producers including Working Title co-founder Eric Fellner, screenwriter Jemima Khan, and former BBC drama commissioner-turned-A24 international boss Piers Wenger.

Tim Richards, chairman...

Acting head of drama Ben Irving, senior commissioner Manda Levin to leave, while development head Tom Lazenby has deparated.

The BBC drama department has been hit with a triple departure: acting director of drama Ben Irving and senior commissioning editor Manda Levin are leaving the corporation, and head of development Tom Lazenby has already departed.

The trio of departures represents a significant change to the team, and will give incoming director of drama Lindsay Salt scope to reshape it after she joins from Netflix UK on Tuesday.

Irving is leaving to join Severance producer Fifth Season (formerly Endeavor Content) in...

Acting head of drama Ben Irving, senior commissioner Manda Levin to leave, while development head Tom Lazenby has deparated.

The BBC drama department has been hit with a triple departure: acting director of drama Ben Irving and senior commissioning editor Manda Levin are leaving the corporation, and head of development Tom Lazenby has already departed.

The trio of departures represents a significant change to the team, and will give incoming director of drama Lindsay Salt scope to reshape it after she joins from Netflix UK on Tuesday.

Irving is leaving to join Severance producer Fifth Season (formerly Endeavor Content) in...

Endeavor Content’s newly-rebranded Fifth Season has signaled major international intentions with the hire of Ben Irving, the BBC’s former Acting Drama Director whose exec producer credits include His Dark Materials, Doctor Who and Gentleman Jack.

Irving joins in the newly-created role of Creative Director, UK Television, coming a week after Endeavor rebranded to Fifth Season following the 785M acquisition of 80 of its scripted outfit by South Korean powerhouse Cj Enm.

Irving will lead the studio’s UK production and development team, working across existing UK development projects as well as forging new series. Fifth Season’s recent U.S. TV projects include Apple TV+’s Severance, Peacock’s Wolf Like Me and HBO Max’s Tokyo Vice and it also distributes the like of Killing Eve, The Night Manager and Normal People.

He will start in November, reporting to EVP, TV Production and Development Joe Hipps, who described...

The San Sebastian International Film Festival has long been one of the Spanish-speaking world’s most prominent film festivals and as the 70th edition of the festival is nearly underway, the much-loved European event has looked to beef up its industry components in a bid to attract a wider pool of delegates, notably from North America.

This year will see the launch of the new San Sebastian Festival Creative Investors’ Conference, which is co-organized with CAA Media Finance. The two-day conference, which runs September 19-20, will see a host of top global industry execs from companies such as 30West, A24, Anonymous Content, Focus Features, Mubi, Neon, Netflix and Wild Bunch International among others, touch down in the Basque Country.

“Something we’ve had in mind for some years now is to improve and enlarge our industry activities,” festival director José Luis Rebordinos tells Deadline, who says the initiative was organised...

Britain’s leading lady of the TV action thriller, Keeley Hawes, is back.

The star of “Bodyguard” returns in “Crossfire,” another nail-biting thriller for the BBC in which Hawes plays a holidaymaker whose sunbathing session on her hotel balcony becomes a nightmare when shots ring out across the complex, turning her world upside down.

The scenario will remind audiences of her turn as the U.K. home secretary alongside Richard Madden’s bodyguard in the eponymous BBC drama, which became a global hit when it was picked up by Netflix.

The setting for “Crossfire,” however, is a far cry from London’s Westminster, instead set at a luxury resort in the Canary Islands.

Produced by Fremantle’s Dancing Ledge Productions (“The Salisbury Poisonings”), the drama is the first original series from author Louise Doughty, who previously adapted her novel “Apple Tree Yard” for a hugely popular BBC limited series.

Dancing...

Margarethe Von Trotta To Receive Lifetime Achievement Honor At The European Film Awards

German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th European Film Awards. von Trotta will receive the honor at a ceremony in Reykjavik, Iceland, on December 10 where she will be an honorary guest. Born in Berlin and raised in Düsseldorf, von Trotta started her career as an actress, in theatre and appeared in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff before moving behind the camera in 1978 with The Second Awakening of Christa Klages, her solo debut as a director. In 1981, her film Marianne and Juliane about the “German Sisters” Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin won the Golden Lion in Venice as well as two German Film Awards and an Italian David di Donatello. Previous winners of the European Film Academy’s lifetime achievement award include Agnès Varda and Judi Dench.

Films presented include Baltasar Kormákur’s Whaleman (At The Ends Of The Earth) and Gerardo Herrero’s Raqqa.

Executives from Wild Bunch, A24, Netflix and Focus Features are among those who will attend the inaugural two-day Creative Investors’ conference taking place at the San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff), organised in collaboration with CAA Media and running from September 19-20.

Participants will include A24 Europe’s head of film and head of TV, respectively, Rose Garnett and Piers Wenger; Netflix’s head of international original film Teresa Moneo; Focus Features’ president of production and acquisitions Kiska Higgs; Mubi’s VP...

Co-organized with CAA Media Finance, a new San Sebastian Festival Creative Investors’ Conference will see many of the good and great of the international film business descend on September’s fest edition to be pitched 10 higher-budget Spanish movies by their producers.

The Conference will run Sept.19-20. In a cosmopolitan lineup, titles pitched include international co-productions such as “Whalemen (At the Ends of the Earth)” from “Everest” director Baltasar Kormákur as well as the latest from “Amama” helmer Asier Altuna and “Raqa,” from Gerardo Herrero, an Academy Award wining producer for “The Secret in Their Eyes.”

The conference’s high-profile international investors, producers, agents and executives take in Mubi’s Bobby Allen, Piers Wenger at A24 Europe, Focus Features’s Kiska Higgs, 30West’s Trevor Groth, Vincent Maraval at Wild Bunch International and Netflix’s Teresa Moneo.

Also confirmed are the Elysian Film Group’s Danny Perkins, Neon CEO Tom Quinn,...

The BBC and Amazon Prime Video have released first-look images of Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer in upcoming period drama “The English.”

Written and directed by Hugo Blick (“The Honourable Woman”), “The English” is a Western set in 1890s America where an aristocratic Englishwoman called Lady Cornelia Locke (played by Blunt) and Pawnee ex-cavalry scout Eli Whipp (played by Spencer) join forces “to cross a violent landscape built on dreams and blood,” according to the logline.

“Both of them have a clear sense of their destiny but neither is aware that it is rooted in a shared past,” the synopsis continues. “They must face increasingly terrifying obstacles that will test them to their cores, physically and psychologically. But as each obstacle is overcome it draws them closer to their ultimate destination, the new town of Hoxem, Wyoming.”

Joining Blunt and Spencer are Stephen Rea (“The Shadow Line”) as local sheriff...

Exclusive: The Affair star Ruth Wilson and Peaky Blinders and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande actor Daryl McCormack have been set to lead new blue-chip BBC and Showtime series The Woman in the Wall, inspired by Ireland’s controversial Magdalene Laundries.

In the 6×60’ gothic thriller, two-time BAFTA nominee Wilson will play Lorna Brady, who wakes one morning to find a corpse in her house. Brady has no idea who the dead woman is or if she herself might be responsible for the apparent murder, because she has long suffered from extreme bouts of sleepwalking. The episodes began during her teenage years when she was incarcerated in one of Ireland and the Catholic Church’s notorious Magdalene Laundries, where ‘fallen women’ were sent to atone for “sins” such as adultery and teenage pregnancy.

2022 Showtime Pilots & Series Orders

Rising actor McCormack will play the ambitious but elusive Detective Colman Akande, who...

Last year, we shared the news that Fremantle’s Euston Films is set to produce a six-part horror comedy series called Wrecked for BBC Three and BBC iPlayer. Euston’s Noemi Spanos and BBC’s Tommy Bulfin executive produced the show, which has been written by Ryan J. Brown – who said he “wanted to create a piece of genre entertainment that had the savvy teen sharpness of Scream, the unsettling atmosphere of The Shining and the strange upstairs, downstairs mythology of The Cabin in the Woods.” Wrecked is now set to premiere at London’s Fright Fest on August 26th (the show will launch on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer later this autumn), and in anticipation of the premiere a batch of images from the show have arrived online… images that seem to reveal that the killer wears a duck costume and is called Quacky! The images can be seen...

Exclusive: Rebecca Ferguson, series producer on BBC hits including The Responder and The Trial of Christine Keeler, has been snapped up by the new-look BBC drama commissioning team, Deadline can reveal.

Ferguson effectively replaces This is Going to Hurt commissioner Mona Qureshi, who moved to Netflix several months ago.

She has been freelancing with the team since May and became a permanent Drama Commissioning Editor last month.

The former Film4 and Broadchurch indie Kudos exec has a lot on her plate already, working across huge BBC shows including The Capture, Happy Valley and Doctor Who. Deadline revealed on Tuesday that Heyday Television deepfake thriller The Capture’s second season has been promoted to the coveted August Bank Holiday slot.

Ferguson, who series-produced the Martin Freeman-starring police drama The Responder and The Trial of Christine Keeler, will also develop her own slate. The Responder, which aired on BritBox in the U.

Netflix has picked up the global rights outside the U.K. and Ireland on BBC drama “Champion,” from “Queenie” author Candice Carty-Williams.

The show, which is currently in production for BBC One in the U.K., marks the first TV project for the award-winning Carty-Williams, who recently released her new novel, “People Person.”

The music-infused “Champion” tells the explosive story of what happens when fame collides with family. The show follows rap sensation Bosco Champion, who is home from prison, and ready to dominate the music industry. But when his dutiful younger sister Vita’s own talent is discovered by Bosco’s rival, Bulla, she steps out of her brother’s shadow to become a performer in her own right, setting the Champion siblings against one another and tearing apart the whole family in the process.

Billed as a love letter to Black British music set in south London, “Champion...

Piers Wenger’s successor is former Sky drama development head.

The BBC has raided Netflix UK to appoint Lindsay Salt as its director of drama.

Reporting to chief content officer Charlotte Moore, Salt will be responsible for leading the commissioning team and delivering distinctive drama content.

She joined Netflix in 2019 from Sky, following the same path as the streamer’s vice president of content Anne Mensah.

Her commissions at the SVoD giant include Baby Reindeer, One Day, The F*** It Bucket, Palomino and Half Bad. She also worked across shows including Heartstopper and series five of The Crown.

Prior to that,...

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In a reversal of the usual exec moves from British networks to streamers, the BBC has hired Netflix’s scripted executive Lindsay Salt to serve as its director of drama, a position considered one of the most prestigious and influential in British TV.

Salt replaces Piers Wenger, who left earlier this year to join A24 as part of its major international push.

Having been at Netflix since 2019 where she was part of the first U.K. scripted team and established the new slate with Anne Mensah, Salt’s commissions included Baby Reindeer, One Day, The Fuck it Bucket, Palomino and Half Bad. She also worked across shows including Heartstopper and The Crown season five.

“Lindsay’s appointment heralds an exciting new era for BBC Drama,” said BBC content chief Charlotte Moore. “She has been responsible for an impressive breadth of shows and her...

The BBC has poached well-respected scripted executive Lindsay Salt from Netflix, to serve as the public broadcaster’s new director of drama — one of the most high-profile jobs in British television.

Salt — who commissioned Netflix shows such as the forthcoming “One Day” and “Half Bad” — replaces Piers Wenger, who left the BBC to oversee the international film and TV slate for Hollywood indie studio A24 alongside BBC Films boss Rose Garnett.

Salt’s hire is a major coup for the BBC and marks an especially rare occasion where a U.K. public broadcaster has lured away streaming talent. The current generally flows the other way, with Netflix having snapped up BBC drama executive Mona Qureshi to join its scripted series team earlier this year.

Salt, who worked closely with Anne Mensah at Netflix, will report directly to Charlotte Moore, chief content officer at the BBC, and lead the drama commissioning team.

The BBC has unveiled Lindsay Salt, Netflix UK scripted commissioner, as its next Director of Drama.

Salt replaces Piers Wenger, who departed to A24 earlier this year to run its international division alongside former BBC Films boss Rose Garnett. BBC Drama Commissioner Ben Irving was doing the role on an interim basis and had been tipped as frontrunner to take it permanently along with Channel 4 Drama Head Caroline Hollick.

Reporting to Anne Mensah, who was also linked with the BBC job, Salt has been with Netflix for three years, commissioning the likes of Baby Reindeer, One Day, The F*** it Bucket, Palomino and Half Bad and working across hits such as Heartstopper and The Crown.

She used to run development at Sky Drama, during which time she also worked with Mensah.

Salt will report to to BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore, who said the move “heralds an exciting new era for BBC drama.

First-look images have been released of Olivia Colman (“Landscapers”) as Miss Havisham alongside Fionn Whitehead (“The Duke”) as Pip and Shalom Brune-Franklin (“The Tourist”) as Estella in “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight’s upcoming BBC/FX adaptation of “Great Expectations.”

The cast of the six-part limited series also include Ashley Thomas (“Top Boy”), Johnny Harris (“The Salisbury Poisonings “), Hayley Squires (“The Essex Serpent”), Owen McDonnell (“Killing Eve”), Trystan Gravelle (“A Discovery of Witches”), Rudi Dharmalingam (“The Split”) and Matt Berry (“Toast of London”).

Based on Charles Dickens’ oft-adapted literature classic, which debuted in a series of weekly chapters beginning in Dec. 1860 before it was subsequently published as a novel, “Great Expectations” is the coming-of-age story of an orphan nicknamed Pip.

Knight writes and executive produces the adaptation, the second Dickens adaptation from him, following “A Christmas Carol” (2019). These are the first two in a series of adaptations of Dickens’ novels...

Channels

Paramount‘s free ad-supported streaming television (Fast) provider Pluto TV has launched four new channels in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television (Spt). The new channels will bring Spt content to Pluto TV across Europe and the U.K. Audiences in the U.K., Italy and Spain get a channel dedicated to classic sitcom “Married… with Children,” the classic Spt series which follows the misadventures of misanthropic women’s shoe salesman Al Bundy, played by Ed O’Neill. Viewers in the U.K. and Spain will get “The Nanny,” which follows cosmetic saleswoman Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) as she navigates her new job as a nanny for the three children of a Broadway producer.

Sitcom “The Jeffersons,” which follows the life and family of George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) as he decides to move to New York’s posh Upper East Side and adjusts to the unexpected pitfalls that his new address will bring him,...

Amazon Prime Video has released the first teaser trailer for the new Chris Pratt action-thriller series “The Terminal List.”

Based on the best-selling novel by Jack Carr, the series follows James Reece (Pratt) after his platoon of Navy SEALs is wiped out during a covert mission. Reece’s situation worsens when he returns home to his family and conflicting memories and questions about his culpability arise. As new evidence about the ambush comes to light, Reece discovers dark forces working against him, endangering not only his life, but the lives of those he loves.

The series also stars Constance Wu, Taylor Kitsch, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Riley Keough, Arlo Mertz, Jai Courtney, Jd Pardo, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Lamonica Garrett, Stephen Bishop, Sean Gunn, Tyner Rushing, Jared Shaw, Christina Vidal, Nick Chinlund, Matthew Rauch, Warren Kole and Alexis Louder.

Pratt and Jon Schumacher executive produce for Indivisible Productions alongside Antoine Fuqua of Fuqua Films.

Sex Education producer Eleven is behind a British/Australian drama series about a group of expats in the 1950s for the BBC and Aussie SVoD Stan.

The Stranger and Brassic writer Danny Brocklehurst is penning Ten Pound Poms, a rare co-production between the British and Australian networks.

The six-parter, which films shortly in Australia, follows a group of Brits as they leave dreary post-war Britain in 1956 to embark on a life-altering adventure on the other side of the world. At the heart of the drama is the Roberts family, who try to look for ways to make the best of their situation but the poor living conditions at the migrant hostel and local attitudes towards immigrants test them in ways they couldn’t have imagined. And they aren’t the only people at the hostel avoiding the truth.

Sex Education indie Eleven is producing, having been behind the Netflix global...

It’s Friday again, readers. Jesse Whittock here, taking you through the week’s top headlines.

Cannes Goods

Pre-market deals galore: With Cannes now less than two weeks away, everyone’s in deal mode, and Andreas had the scoop on several big packages. Film Constellation took sales rights to Blue Jean, a BBC Film- and BFI backed identity drama, while Bella Thorne has signed up to lead thriller Saint Clare, co-scripted by American Psycho’s Guinevere Turner. Oscar nominee Felicity Jones and Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey are attached to comedy Maria, which Independent Entertainment will be selling at the festival, XYZ Films took worldwide sales rights to the Frank Grillo/Robert Patrick/Rhona Mitra-starring thriller Hounds of War, and Bankside Films bagged Oren Moverman’s Raised Eyebrows, which brings Geoffrey Rush and Sienna Miller together. Elsewhere, Kate Beckinsale is set for spy thriller...

Major role in UK film ecosystem is responsible for £11m yearly budget.

Eva Yates has been confirmed as the new director of BBC Film, taking on one of the major roles in the independent UK film ecosystem.

Yates has been acting director at the development and production body since the departure of Rose Garnett to join US firm A24, announced in early March this year. She will start immediately as director, and will be in Cannes.

Yates will oversee BBC Film’s £11m annual budget for development and production, which goes towards 12 to 15 films a year. Also under her remit is the Storyville documentary strand,...

Festivals

The U.K. premiere of “Good Luck To You, Leo Grande,” directed by Sophie Hyde, will open this year’s Sundance London (June 9-12), with lead actors Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack in attendance. The festival will close with the U.K. premiere screening of Jim Archer’s “Brian and Charles,” starring actor and comedian David Earl.

In all, the festival will host several features chosen from the larger U.S. Sundance Film Festival. These include Adamma Ebo’s “Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul”; Andrew Semans’ “Resurrection”; Max Walker-Silverman’s “A Love Song”; Lena Dunham’s “Sharp Stick”; Chloe Okuno’s “Watcher”; Sara Dosa’s “Fire of Love”; Ed Perkins’ “The Princess”; Joe Hunting’s “We Met in Virtual Reality”; Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s “Free Chol Soo Lee”; and Hanna Bergholm’s “Hatching.”

This year, the festival will feature an equal number of male and female directors across features and shorts.