News

Paramount+ has released first-look images of the upcoming U.K. original series The Crow Girl with Eve Myles, Katherine Kelly, Dougray Scott and Elliot Edusah.

The six-part thriller, an adaptation of Erik Axl Sund’s bestselling novel of the same name, is produced by Emmy-winning creative team Buccaneer (Irvine Welsh’s Crime, Marcella).

When the bodies of unidentified young men start to show up around the city, beaten and full of the anaesthetic lidocaine, Dci Jeanette Kilburn (Myles) and partner Di Lou Stanley (Scott) are on the hunt for the killer.

With a lack of evidence and pressure to solve the case mounting, Jeanette enlists the help of prime suspect Carl Lowry’s psychotherapist Dr Sophia Craven (Kelly) who offers a fresh but troubling perspective on the case. But with the killer inching ever closer to home, Jeanette and the team are in a race against time to untangle the web of secrets.

Filming on Channel 4‘s new crime thriller In Flight, starring Katherine Kelly, is underway.

The new six-part series follows Kelly (Mr Bates vs the Post Office, The Long Shadow) as Jo, a flight attendant who finds her life turned upside down when she is blackmailed into drug smuggling when her son is arrested.

Co-created by Mike Walden (Marcella, Whitstable Pearl) and Adam Randall (Slow Horses, iBoy), and directed by Chris Baugh (Wreck, Tin Star), the show will also star Stuart Martin, Ashley Thomas, Bronagh Waugh, Harry Cadby, Corinna Brown and Ambreen Razia.

Set in Bangkok, Bulgaria, Istanbul and London, filming takes place in Belfast with funding support from Northern Ireland Screen.

“I am really excited to be taking on the role of Jo and I can’t wait to tell her compelling story,” Kelly said. “I am delighted to be working with Buccaneer Media again and it’s joy to be filming in Belfast.

Exclusive: UK network Channel 4 has boarded a crime drama starring Katherine Kelly about a single mother who is blackmailed into smuggling drugs.

Filming on the six-part In Flight is underway, with Kelly playing an air hostess who is forced to take desperate measures after her son is arrested. Alongside Channel 4, Prosieben has acquired rights to Germany, Sbs for Australia and Tvnz for New Zealand. Fremantle is handling international distribution.

Mike Walden and Adam Randall are the writers and Chris Baugh is the director. Buccaneer Media is producing.

Kelly’s character, Jo Conran, is a single mother whose son is serving a 15-year sentence in a Bulgarian prison for a murder he swears not to have committed. When she approached by a gang who knows all about her situation, she is blackmailed...

Acorn TV’s fan-favorite crime drama Whitstable Pearl returns with all-new episodes on Monday, October 21, in the US, Canada, UK (including Northern Ireland), Australia, and New Zealand. Additional episodes of the six-episode Acorn TV Original series will drop weekly on Mondays.

Based on the beloved novels The Whitstable Pearl Mysteries by Julie Wassmer, Season 3 sees the return of Kerry Godliman (After Life) in the lead role of Pearl Nolan and Howard Charles (Top Boy) as Detective Chief Inspector (Dci) Mike McGuire.

The other returning cast members include Frances Barber (The Chelsea Detective) as Dolly, Robert Webb (Peep Show) as Tom Grant, Isobelle Molloy (EastEnders) as Ruby Williams, and Sophia Del Pizzo (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) as Detective Sergeant (DS) Nikki Martel.

In Whitstable Pearl, sleuthing restaurant owner Pearl (Godliman) continues to build her private detective business and finds herself involved in more diverse investigations, including reopening an infamous local...

Exclusive: Slash is set to shred some solos for Paramount+’s latest British drama series.

The Guns N’ Roses guitarist has boarded The Crow Girl as an exec producer. He will also contribute to the soundtrack for the show, alongside composer Adam Price.

It comes after the streamer ordered the project to series, which comes from Marcella producer Buccaneer, last month.

Deadline understands that the musician, otherwise known as Saul Hudson, is a big fan of the novel, written by Erik Axl Sund, and brought it to Buccaneer.

Starring Eve Myles, Katherine Kelly and Dougray Scott, The Crow Girl begins with the gruesome discovery of a teenage boy’s body discarded in plain sight. Determined to find who is responsible, Dci Jeanette Kilburn joins forces with psychotherapist Sophia Craven to hunt the killer, despite opposition from her superiors including confidant Di Lou Stanley.

The Crow Girl is the first major...

Paramount+ may have culled a raft of international originals last month but UK commissioning appears to be continuing apace.

The streamer has given the green light to The Crow Girl from Buccaneer Media, the producer that saw another of its shows, The Doll Factory, ditched by the platform last month.

Starring Eve Myles, Katherine Kelly and Dougray Scott, The Crow Girl is adapted from the Erik Axl Sund novel and begins with the gruesome discovery of a teenage boy’s body discarded in plain sight. Determined to find who is responsible, Dci Jeanette Kilburn joins forces with psychotherapist Sophia Craven to hunt the killer, despite opposition from her superiors including confidant Di Lou Stanley.

The Crow Girl is the first major TV writing gig for Milly Thomas,...

Exclusive: Whitstable Pearl has been greenlit for a third season by AMC streaming platform Acorn.

The British crime drama stars After Life‘s Kerry Godliman in the lead role and is based on the mystery novels by Julie Wassmer.

In Season 3 of the show from Crime producer Buccaneer, Godliman returns to build her private detective business, finding herself involved in more diverse investigations, including reopening an infamous local cold case and the death of a famous food critic. She’s aided and abetted by her outspoken, feisty mum Dolly and still going strong with boyfriend Tom, but it’s navigating her complex relationship with Dci Mike McGuire that still proves Pearl’s most challenging case

Howard Charles returns as Dci Mike McGuire and other returning cast members include Frances Barber as Dolly, Robert Webb as Tom Grant, Isobelle Molloy as Ruby Williams and Sophia del Pizzo as DS Nikki Martel.

Cineflix’s Rights’ Leonard Cohen series starring Alex Wolff as the iconic singer-songwriter has revealed presales in the U.K., Greece and Cyprus, with Ard’s Fabfiction in Germany joining as a co-producer.

Titled “So Long, Marianne,” the drama has sold to Itvx in the U.K., Cosmote TV and Star Channel in Greece and Movies Best HD in Cyprus. Ard’s Fabfiction has joined original co-producers Nrk in Norway and Bell Media’s Crave in Canada.

According to its official description, the series “tells the legendary love story of Canadian singer and poet Leonard Cohen, and his muse Marianne Ihlen who inspired the titular song. It’s an intimate tale of two lonely people falling in love during a period of their life when they are trying to figure out who they are and their place in the world, while one is becoming one of the most famous singers of all time.

Exclusive: Crime star Dougray Scott and Buccaneer Media, the Scottish police drama’s producer, have hired a Creative Director for Buccaneer Scotland, as it seeks to supercharge the scale of its productions in the Celtic country.

The Lighthouse development chief Neil Duncan hired to run Buccaneer Scotland slate as Creative Director, focusing on showcasing Scottish literary, acting and behind the camera talent through its worldwide operations and partnerships.

Scott and Buccaneer teamed to launch Buccaneer Scotland in November 2021, with Mission Impossible 2 star Scott taking an equity stake in the business. He had moved back in Scotland after a long period living in the U.S. to film Crime and will be joint CEO of Buccaneer Scotland alongside Buccaneer Media bosses Richard Tulk-Hart and Tony Wood.

Wood, the veteran drama producer and co-creator of The Only Way is Essex, noted big budget U.S. productions such as Starz’s Outlander had...

Alex Wolff will play Leonard Cohen in a new series about the Canadian icon and his muse Marianne Ihlen.

Thea Sofie Loch Næss will portray Ihlen in the show, which is called “So Long, Marianne” — the title of one of Cohen’s songs about his partner. Other cast members include Anna Torv as Charmian Clift and Noah Taylor as George Johnston.

The show is a co-production between Norwegian broadcaster Nrk and Canada’s Crave, the streaming service owned by Bell Media. Cineflix Rights is distributing the series globally.

Principal photography on the show began on March 24, with shooting taking place on the Greek island of Hydra — where Cohen first met Ihlen — as well as Ihlen’s home country of Norway, and the late singer’s hometown of Montreal, Canada.

“So Long, Marianne” is billed as an “intimate tale of two, lonely people falling in love, during a period of their...

Alex Wolff has been cast as legendary singer Leonard Cohen in So Long, Marianne, the Nrk drama series we first revealed last year.

Thea Sofie Loch Næss will play Canadian musician Cohen’s muse Marianne Ihlen. Anna Torv has also been cast Charmian Clift and Noah Taylor is George Johnston.

Wolff appeared opposite Joachim Phoenix in indie flick Pig and has been cast in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Before that, he reteams with Pig filmmaker Michael Sarnoski on Paramount Pictures’ A Quiet Place: Day One alongside Lupita Nyong’o in 2024.

In further developments, Canadian streamer Crave has boarded So Long, Marianne, which began principal photography on March 24 and is shooting in multiple locations including the Greek island of Hydra, Oslo in Norway,...

Exclusive: The Bridge creator Hans Rosenfeldt has set his next project, a return to the canon of crime author C.J. Tudor.

Having just penned Paramount+’s adaptation of Tudor’s The Burning Girls, Rosenfeldt is now turning his attention to her first novel, 2016’s The Chalk Man.

Rosenfeldt is combining once again with UK indie Buccaneer Media, with whom he worked on The Burning Girls and ITV thriller Marcella. BBC Studios, Nice Media Studios, Windowseat Pictures and The Boy with the Top Knot writer Mick Ford were previously adapting The Chalk Man but they are no longer attached.

We hear a network deal for The Chalk Man is close.

Starting in 1986, the book follows Eddie “Munster” Adams, who spends his days biking around a sleepy English village exchanging secret codes via little chalk stick figures with his friends. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body,...

Exclusive: British author C.J. Tudor’s buzzy upcoming book The Drift is set for a TV adaptation.

Irvine Welsh’s Crime and Marcella producer Buccaneer Media and Chicken Soup for the Soul-owned Halcyon Studios, which is behind Prime Video’s Hunters, have won the rights to adapt the book following a competitive, hotly-contested six-way situation.

The companies bought the TV rights from Hannah Ladds at Madeleine Milburn.

The Drift, which Penguin Random House imprints Penguin Michael Joseph in the UK and Ballantine in the U.S. are publishing in January 2023, tells the story of three groups of frightened teens who find themselves thrown together in a frozen post-apocalyptic world. One group is involved in a coach crash, another wakes suspended across a ravine in a broken-down cable and the third hunks down in an isolated sky chalet, and stalking all three is an even greater danger.

For Tudor, who has...

Paramount+ has unveiled the cast of its new original series “The Doll Factory” from “Marcella” producers Buccaneer Media.

An adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name by Elizabeth Macneal, “The Doll Factory” is set in London in 1850 and tells the story of Iris, who paints dolls for a living alongside her twin sister, Rose, and those in their orbit, such as taxidermist Silas, who dreams of finding an item so unique he will be catapulted to fame, and painter Louis, who is searching for his next muse.

When Iris meets Silas, and then Louis, she is offered an opportunity to escape and start a new life. To do so, she must abandon her sister, sacrifice her reputation and launch herself into the unknown. But as Iris’ world expands, a story of dark obsession begins to unfold.

Leading the cast is Esmé Creed-Miles (“Hanna”) as Iris, Éanna Hardwicke (“Normal People”) as Silas,...

Exclusive: Paramount+ is entering The Doll Factory.

The UK wing of the streamer has ordered an adaptation of the Sunday Times bestselling novel, a dark thriller story of obsession centred around a doll painter and her twin sister.

Marcella, Crime and Whistable Pearl indie Buccaneer Media is attached to produce the six-part thriller dramas, which will join the line-up of Paramount+ Originals available on the streaming service for audiences in the UK and Ireland. Sebastian Cardwell, Deputy Chief Content Officer at Paramount UK greenlit the show.

Furthermore, public broadcasters Sbs in Australia and New Zealand’s Tvnz have pre-bought the series, which rising writer Charley Miles is adapting from Elizabeth Macneal’s debut novel. Cineflix Rights which is a partner in Buccaneer, is attached as international distributor.

Set in London in 1850, The Doll Factory tells the story of Iris, who paints dolls for a living alongside her twin sister, Rose,...

Exclusive: Acclaimed Scottish writer Jenni Fagan has struck a two-project development deal with UK drama indie Buccaneer Scotland, which is also producing Fagan’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s The Blade Artist starring Robert Carlyle.

Buccaneer Scotland, a division of ITV’s Marcella producer Buccaneer Media, has taken options on Fagan’s The Panopticon and Luckenbooth, and she will adapt both for TV.

Fagan is an award-winning Scottish novelist, poet, screenwriter and artist who has published several books and poetry collections and is well known for a distinctive style. She was called “the patron saint of literary street urchins” by The New York Times and has achieved popularity Stateside.

Deadline revealed last year that Trainspotting star Carlyle would be reprizing his role as the iconic Francis Begbie in a TV version of Trainspotting sequel The Blade Artist from Buccaneer, which Fagan is also penning separate to the deal. Buccaneer was...

Paramount Plus has revealed a further slate of scripted and unscripted U.K. original series ahead of the launch of the streaming service in the U.K. this summer.

Scripted original series commissioned by Sebastian Cardwell, deputy chief content officer, U.K., Paramount, as part of the streamer’s plans to greenlight 50 new international scripted originals in 2022, include “The Ex-Wife” (4×60″), based on Jess Ryder’s the hit psychological thriller novel, where a woman’s world of a perfect house, a loving husband and a beautiful little girl is turned upside down when her husband’s ex-wife won’t leave them alone.

Céline Buckens (“Showtrial”) plays the lead role in the series, which is co-produced by Clapperboard Studios, BlackBox Multimedia and Night Train Media, with Night Train Media financing and controlling worldwide distribution rights.

“The Ex-Wife” is written by Catherine Steadman who will also serve as executive producer on the series alongside Mike Benson for Clapperboard,...

Exclusive: Leonard Cohen’s relationship with muse Marianne Ihlen is going under the microscope in a 1960s-set drama co-production for Norwegian broadcaster Nrk.

The UK’s Buccaneer Media and Dag and Lilyhammer writer Øystein Karlsen’s Oslo-based Redpoint Productions are co-producing So Long, Marianne with Canada’s Connect3 Media.

The 8×45 minutes series is billed by producers as an “intimate” story of “two equally lonely people falling in love in a period of their life when they are still trying to figure out who they are”.

Buccanneer is heading to Mip TV in Cannes this week to attract distributors and broadcasters.

A majority of the series will be set on the Greek island of Hydra where the pair met before starting a chaotic relationship that inspired the late singer-songwriter to pen songs such as ‘So Long, Marianne’, ‘That’s No Way To Say Goodbye’ and ‘Bird On The Wire...

Exclusive: Acorn TV has commissioned a second series of UK crime drama Whitstable Pearl and the show has been sold by distributor Cineflix Rights to a wealth of international buyers.

Based on Julie Wassmer’s Whitstable Pearl Mysteries, Buccaneer Media’s show features After Life’s Kerry Godliman and Shadow and Bone’s Howard Charles as two locals solving crimes in the picturesque seaside town.

Season two will see celebrity chef Nolan prioritize her detective work and transition from being a chef who solves crimes to a full time investigator who just happens to own a restaurant.

Production will begin on the second six-part series in Whitstable, UK in February, with the show airing on Acorn in North America, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.

Distributor Cineflix has secured pre-sales for the second series in the Nordic region and sold the first to Sky Italia, Nhk Japan, BBC Worldwide (Benelux...

Exclusive: Robert Carlyle is to reprise his role as the notorious Francis Begbie in a TV version of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting sequel The Blade Artist.

More than 25 years on from his star turn in the Danny Boyle film, Carlyle will exec produce and feature as a reformed Begbie in the six-parter, which is being developed by Buccaneer Media. Marcella producer Buccaneer is currently in post-production on another Welsh adaptation, BBC/ITV-streamer BritBox’s Crime.

The Blade Artist novel was published in 2016 and is set in LA and Edinburgh 20 years after the events of Trainspotting, the 1993 book that was adapted into a cult film by Danny Boyle three years later.

Now known as Jim Francis, Begbie is a reformed character who believes he has found the perfect life. But a return to Scotland for the funeral of a murdered son he hardly knows confronts him with a past he can...

Buccaneer Media, the production company behind hit Anna Friel series “Marcella” and Irvine Walsh adaptation “Crime,” has super-charged its management team with two new senior hires: Moreyba Bidessie joins as executive producer and Jo Evans (right) as head of production.

Both Bidessie and Evans will report to Buccaneer’s joint chief executives Richard Tulk-Hart and Tony Wood at the company’s London headquarters. Bidessie will work closely with Wood and executive producer Anna Burns on the company’s scripted development slate while Evans will oversee all Buccaneer’s production activity.

“Jo and Moreyba are joining Buccaneer at a very exciting time for the company,” said Tulk-Hart. “We have produced two big dramas during a very difficult year for everyone and have a number of shows set up around the world for next year and beyond, further fuelling our growth. Both Jo and Moreyba bring so much to the company in...

Exclusive: Hans Rosenfeldt, the formidable Swedish screenwriter behind The Bridge and Marcella, has found his next project: Adapting Cj Tudor’s new bestselling novel The Burning Girls into a TV series.

Rosenfeldt will work with Marcella producer Buccaneer Media to adapt the book after the production company secured the rights in a competitive situation. Tudor’s story became a Sunday Times bestseller after it was published in January.

The book follows Reverend Jack Brooks and her daughter as they make a fresh start in Chapel Croft, but soon the close-knit community’s dark history begins to reveal itself. Some 500 years ago, eight martyrs were burnt to death in Chapel Croft; 30 years ago two teenagers vanished without trace; and two months ago, the vicar committed suicide.

Jack must tread carefully. Ancient superstitions as well as a mistrust of outsiders will be hard to overcome. Yet right away, Jack has more frightening concerns,...

Exclusive: Howard Charles, star of Amazon’s The Widow and CBS’s The Red Line, has been cast as the co-lead in Acorn TV’s British-made crime drama Whitstable Pearl.

Charles, who will next feature in Netflix’s Shadow And Bone, will star alongside After Life actress Kerry Godliman in the six-part Buccaneer Media adaptation of Julie Wassmer’s The Whitstable Pearl Mystery novels.

The series follows big-hearted restaurant owner Pearl Nolan (Godliman) who sets up a local detective agency in the English seaside town of Whitstable after undergoing police training in an earlier career.

Pearl forms an unlikely partnership with Dci Mike McGuire, a new local police chief who has transferred from London to escape his past. Charles plays McGuire.

Whitstable Pearl is adapted by Norwegian filmmaker Øystein Karlsen and production is underway in Whitstable. Executive producers are Tony Wood, Anna Burns, Richard Tulk-Hart and Nadia Jaynes for Buccaneer,...

Exclusive: Tom MacRae, the creator of the Everybody’s Talking About Jamie musical and upcoming feature, and Marcella producer Buccaneer Media have joined Nevision’s adaptation of Mg Leonard’s Beetle Boy children’s books.

MacRae is scripting the live-action/CGI returnable series, with Buccaneer co-producing. Oscar-winning studio Framestore, which helped create the CGI demons in His Dark Materials, has also been attached to the project.

The series will be set in the UK and is based on a trilogy of books that were optioned by Keeping Faith co-producer Nevision in 2018. The books are published by Chicken House in the UK and Scholastic in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

They center on 13-year-old Darkus Cuttle’s search for his kidnapped father, leading him to discover a mountain of extraordinary beetles and pitting him against the mad-scientist of the fashion world Lucretia Cutter,...

Exclusive: Acorn TV’s push into originals is continuing at pace after the AMC Networks streamer commissioned Buccaneer Media, the producer behind ITV/Netflix’s Anna Friel hit Marcella, to adapt Julie Wassmer’s The Whitstable Pearl Mystery novels into a series.

Deadline hears that Buccaneer has been developing a six-part series for a number of months and has signed up Kerry Godliman, the star of Ricky Gervais’ Netflix comedy After Life, to headline the show.

Whitstable Pearl will be adapted by Norwegian filmmaker Øystein Karlsen, whose credits include Lilyhammer and Exit, and production will begin in the English seaside town of Whitstable on October 26.

The series follows big-hearted local restaurant owner Pearl Nolan who sets up a local detective agency after undergoing police training in an earlier career. She is soon embroiled in her first case when she discovers the body of close friend, Vinnie.

Pearl forms an unlikely partnership with Dci Mike McGuire,...

BBC/ITV SVoD lands trio of dramas from high-profile talent.

Anthony Horowitz, Irvine Welsh and Ridley Scott projects are spearheading UK SVoD BritBox’s debut drama slate.

The BBC and ITV joint-venture has ordered a trio of crime adaptations from the high-profile authors, along with a Patrick Spence (Fortitude) project, as it moves into high-end scripted programming for the first time.

Set to air across 2021 and 2022 with several of the series lengths yet to be determined, the calibre of the talent secured underlines the extent of BritBox’s scripted ambitions.

The Beast Must Die, from Ridley Scott’s Scott Free and New Regency Television,...

“Trainspotting” creator Irvine Welsh will adapt his novel “Crime” alongside long-standing screenwriting partner Dean Cavanagh (“Wedding Belles”) for BBC and ITV-backed streamer BritBox U.K. The six-episode production is one of four original commissions announced by the platform on Wednesday.

Set in Edinburgh and directed by James Strong (“Liar”), “Crime” will star Dougray Scott (“Mission: Impossible 2”) as a detective who is investigating the disappearance of a schoolgirl while battling his own personal demons. It is being produced by Buccaneer Media, Tony Wood and Dougray Scott. Executive producers are Welsh, Cavanagh, Richard Tulk-Hart and James Strong. It is distributed worldwide by Cineflix Rights.

Five-part revenge thriller, “The Beast Must Die,” based on Nicholas Blake’s novel, is being produced by New Regency Television and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free. New Regency will also distribute internationally.

The series stars Jared Harris (“Chernobyl”), Cush Jumbo (“The Good Wife”), Billy Howle (“MotherFatherSon...

The BBC and ITV’s joint-venture streamer BritBox has pulled the curtain back on its first slate of UK drama originals, just weeks after Deadline revealed that Damian Lewis and Dominic West will star in an adaptation of A Spy Among Friends for the streamer.

Building on the Kim Philby espionage thriller, which BritBox is co-producing with Spectrum Originals, the subscription video service has announced three fresh projects — all of which are literary adaptations with British writing, directing, and acting talent at their core. They will premiere in 2021.

First up, New Regency Television and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Films will make The Beast Must Die, an adaption of the 1938 novel of the same name by Nicholas Blake, the nom de plume of poet Cecil Day-Lewis, father of Daniel Day-Lewis. It tells the story of a grieving mother who infiltrates the life of the man she believes killed her son.

Exclusive: Imagine a world where humans lose the capacity to store long-term recollections and instead are issued a government memory chip. This is the world of In Memoriam, a new drama in development at HBO Max.

The series comes from rising British playwright Charley Miles and Mr Robot director Niels Arden Oplev.

Produced by Buccaneer Media, whose Anna Friel-fronted drama Marcella is in its third season at Netflix, and Participant, the thriller is a returnable, serialised series set in the UK.

Miles, who was the Channel 4 Playwright-in-Residence at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2017, writes and Oplev, who also helmed the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie, directs.

The story is set in the near future. Whilst humanity was busy uploading photos to the cloud and digitising every book ever written, the human brain was quietly evolving, and we lost the capacity to store long-term memory. But...