BBC Studios Pounces On ‘Big Cats’ Sales; Channel 4 & SBS Board ‘Mysteries Of…’; WBITVP, Cineflix & Blue Ant Slates — MIPCOM Cannes Briefs
BBC Studios Pounces On ‘Big Cats 24/7’ Sales
BBC Studios and PBS’s upcoming natural history show Big Cats 24/7 has landed a host of pre-buyers ahead of MIPCOM Cannes. In China, Bilibili, iQiyi, Tencent, Youku and linear channel CCTV World Geography have bought the BBC Studios Natural History Unit-produced show, along with YLE (Finland), France Televisions (France), Sky Deutschland (Germany) and Movistar Plus+ (Spain). The show will also be available on the BBC Earth channel in Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Romania, Malta, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa and Turkey. In Asia, it will be on BBC Earth and SVOD service BBC Player in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. The six-part series follows the lives of lions, cheetahs and leopards in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, a place described as one of Africa’s last wildernesses. BBC Studios is heading to Cannes with the show and others such as Expedition Killer Whale, Renaissance: The Blood and Beauty, Paddy and Chris: Road Tripping and a new season of Amazing Hotels: Life Behind the Lobby.
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Channel 4 & SBS Board ‘Mysteries Of…’
The UK’s Channel 4 and Australia’s SBS have boarded Mysteries Of…, a factual series from Curve Media that explores iconic phenomenons. The show will look to explain Stonehenge, sink-holes and the Loch Ness Monster, with each episodes of the series unpacking the history and cultural impact of one mystery, before testing the various origin stories and theories that have risen up around it. Distributor BossaNova Media is shopping it as a three- and six-part series at MIPCOM, alongside the likes of Sky History UK’s Greatest Escapes of World War 2 from Australian producer Perpetual Entertainment. “SBS Australia’s audience are fascinated by well-authored, well-researched “mystery docs” like Mysteries Of... Once we heard the amazing news that our friends at Channel 4 were also interested, we were pretty much at ‘greenlighting’ the project,” said Peter Andrews, Head of Network Programming Television & Online Content of Mysteries Off…, while Paul Heaney, CEO of BossaNova, added: “We’d love to say this fantastic Mysteries Of…project has come via a bit of magic and clever alchemy, but it’s simple practicality and industry reflecting how BossaNova can bring projects to reality in this era. Curve already had something in early development, which chimed with how SBS and Channel 4 wanted a series like this to look and feel. Who knows, if it works for all parties, there may be more.”
The Latest MIPCOM Slates
WBITVP
Warner Bros International Television Production is taking 20 new formats to MIPCOM Cannes, including a Harry Potter cookery show and Friends-themed quiz. The slate covers reality, entertainment and factual entertainment, alongside scripted formats. Among the most notable are Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking and 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing, both of which are for Food Network and Max in the U.S. Others include Fast Friends — in which Friends superfine engage in episodes combining trivia about the NBC series and escape room challenges — an Human vs Hamster, which is from the recently announced Magnolia Network deal. On the scripted front are horror-crime series Styx, which is for Belgium streamer Streamz. All and Eva I a lighthearted Swedish drama for Viaplay about a woman who falls for her sperm donor, and Planet Eldorado is a fast-paced comedy-drama out of Finland set in the 1990s during the early days of the internet following a teenage geek who comes to rely on an anonymous online friend who he mistakenly believes is the girl of his dreams.
Cineflix
Cineflix Rights will bring a slate of scripted shows including the BBC adaptation of A.A. Dhand’s ‘Virdee’ and a dystopian sci-fi ‘live-action anime.’ Virdee stars Staz Nair as a Bradford cop hunting down a serial killer, as his own life is in chaos after he is disowned by his family for crossing the religious divide when marrying his wife. Heart Attack comes from The Walking Dead maker Skybound and ROBOT and is for Fuji TV in Japan. Billed as ‘live-action anime,’ it is set in post-pandemic Japan, where a portion of the population who have developed supernatural powers are persecuted by the government and struggle against oppression. Last week, we revealed Skybound Japan had named Mitsuru Oda as its new President. Cineflix is also readying Wynonna Earp: Vengeance for the international market, alongside the likes of Paramount+ UK drama The Burning Girls, Whitstable Pearl Season 3 and Last King of the Cross Season 2.
Blue Ant
Marcel Theroux doc The Eunuch Maker and The Jury: Death on the Staircase are among the key titles on Blue Ant Studios’ slate this year. The Eunuch Maker looks into the dark world of voluntary castration, while The Jury, which looks at the Australian criminal system and launched at the London TV Screenings, is being shopped as tape and format. Canadian distrib Blue Ant also a large nature, wildlife and environmental programs slate, including Survival of the Beast, in which adventurer Max Djenohan discovers and mimics the survival skills of the most charismatic animals on Earth. Also noisy is doc The “A” Word: America’s War on Women, which examines how the Supreme Court von on abortion has become a battle for freedom, equality and healthcare.
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