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Sundance Now has picked up Domino Day, the BBC YA drama about a young witch with extraordinary powers in modern-day England.

Following its UK launch on BBC Three earlier this year and a strong critical showing, Domino Day will premiere in the U.S. this summer on Sundance Now and AMC+.

Set and filmed in Manchester, UK, the supernatural six-parter stars the BAFTA–nominated Siena Kelly (Adult Material, Hit & Run) as Domino Day, a young woman on all the dating apps. A young witch with extraordinary powers, Domino is desperately seeking a community who can help her understand who she is, but she doesn’t need to look far as a coven of witches is already tracking her every move, convinced they have to stop her before her powers destroy everyone and everything around her.

“Domino Day was destined for Sundance Now,” said Shannon Cooper, VP, Programming, Sundance Now. “With...

BAFTA-winning producer Patrick Spence is leaving ITV Studios after three years, Variety has confirmed.

Spence, who serves as creative director, will leave at the end of March, ITV Studios managing director Julian Bellamy told staff via an internal memo on Thursday. Spence will continue to partner with ITV Studios on upcoming projects including “People vs. Post Office” (working title).

Spence joined ITV Studios in 2020 and secured several acclaimed commissions, including the BBC’s drama-romance “Ralph & Katie,” a spin-off of “The A Word,” about the lives of a couple with Down syndrome; Itvx’s “Litvinenko,” about the investigation into the death of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko; the BAFTA-nominated Cold War spy drama “A Spy Among Friends,” also for Itvx; and post-pandemic frontline medical drama “Maternal” for ITV.

The producer spent 15 years in commissioning and production at the BBC. He served as head of drama for Northern Ireland from 2003 to 2010. In...

Steve McQueen’s upcoming World War 2 feature “Blitz” has added six to its ensemble cast, Variety can reveal.

Benjamin Clementine (“Dune”), Leigh Gill (both pictured above), Mica Ricketts, Cj Beckford, Hayley Squires and Sally Messham are all set to appear in the Apple TV+ film.

They join previously announced Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”), Stephen Graham (“The Irishman”), Harris Dickinson (“Triangle of Sadness”), Erin Kellyman (“Willow”), Kathy Burke (“Absolutely Fabulous”), newcomer Elliott Heffernan and music artist turned actor Paul Weller.

McQueen is writing, directing and producing the project.

Few details have been released for the Apple original film, which has already gone into production in the U.K. The title “Blitz” refers to the German bombardment of London during World War 2 and it has been confirmed the film will follow a variety of Londoners during 1940 and 1941 as they navigate a new normal. Measures introduced by the British government at the time to reduce fatalities included blackouts,...

Exclusive: Cast has been set on Hoard, the UK indie from debut feature director Luna Carmoon which is being funded by the BFI and BBC Film.

Leading the pic will be Saura Lightfoot Leon and Deba Hekmat, alongside BAFTA-nominated Hayley Squires and Joseph Quinn.

Filming commences in London this week on the feature, which is a drama set in the 1980s and 90s.

It is being produced by Loran Dunn for Delaval Film, Helen Simmons for Erebus Pictures (both BFI Vision Awardees), and Andy Starke for Anti-Worlds. The project is funded by the BFI and BBC Film, and was developed with BBC Film. Executive Producers are Kristin Irving for the BFI and Eva Yates for BBC Film.

Director Carmoon’s debut short, Nosebleed, premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and was selected for Sundance Ignite.

Having penned hits such as “Shame” and “The Iron Lady,” Abi Morgan is undoubtedly one of the U.K.’s best-known screenwriters. Now the creator of shows including “The Hours” and “The Split” is turning her hand to filmmaking.

Morgan, a BAFTA and Emmy-award winning writer, will make her directorial debut with an upcoming episode of “The Split,” which she also executive produces alongside Jane Featherstone (“Chernobyl”), Lucy Dyke (“Black Mirror”) and Lucy Richer (“Small Axe”).

Season 3 of the hit show, about a family of divorce lawyers working through their own personal problems, is set to air in the U.K. on the BBC and in the U.S. on BBC America in 2022, and will be available to stream on iPlayer in the U.K. and Sundance Now in the U.S.

Morgan’s pivot to directing has been a long time coming. She has spent almost three decades behind the scenes,...

Disney Plus has hired Channel 4 commissioner Lee Mason to join its scripted team for Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea), Variety has confirmed.

Set to join the streamer this summer, Mason will serve as director of scripted content for Emea, reporting into Liam Keelan, VP of original content for Europe and Africa at Disney. He will work alongside Johanna Devereaux, the platform’s other director of scripted content.

Mason first joined Channel 4 in 2011, and has commissioned shows including “It’s a Sin,” now a major hit for HBO Max, and “The End of the F***ing World,” which was a high-profile co-production with Netflix. Other shows include “Ackley Bridge,” “Adult Material,” “Help,” “Screw” and “The Birth of Daniel F Harris.”

Keelan, a former BBC Studios scripted executive, has steadily been building out his team of commissioners for Disney Plus, which launched in Europe just over a year ago. Most recently, he...

Although it may be difficult to believe, this year marks two decades since John Fawcett's Ginger Snaps made its world premiere on the festival circuit. Still as timely as when it was first released, the coming-of-age werewolf film is now being reimagined as a TV series with Fawcett executive producing alongside Sally Woodward Gentle & Lee Morris (Killing Eve), Clark Peterson, and Copperheart’s Steve Hoban, with Anna Ssemuyaba on board to write the new take on the cult classic that spawned a three-film franchise:

Press Release: Sid Gentle Films, the BAFTA and Emmy award-winning producers behind Killing Eve, and Copperheart Entertainment, the producers of the Ginger Snaps trilogy of cult horror films, will collaborate on the high-end television adaptation of the subversive and darkly comic tale of teenage sisterhood with television writer Anna Ssemuyaba.

Ssemuyaba was named by Deadline as one of the UK’s ten rising stars of...

Wild Bunch TV-sold “Albatros,” Turner Latin America’s banner title “Amarres” and REInvent Studios’ globe-trotting “Peacemaker” will feature at a 54 series-strong Buyers Showcase, which launches today March 25 as a backbone of Series Mania’s online Digital Forum, Europe’s first big festival experiment in a virtual marketplace.

Also featuring a powerful Co-Pro Pitching lineup, packed by pedigree producers and creatives, the Digital Forum’s industry audience, such as the number of accredited distributors, still has to be confirmed.

Some high-profile titles are missing: Opener “The Luminaries,” for example, from Fremantle and Working Title, and HBO closer “Run.” That said, the Buyer’s Showcase looks set to include five of Series Mania’s original 10 main competition entries and 13 of its 15 International Panorama titles, the festival’s two main sections.

Looking to the long-haul, as it also address urgent financial fall-out from Covid-19, the industry needs festival selection more than ever.

“Series...

Paris — “Narcos” showrunner Chris Brancato and “Godfather of Harlem” star Giancarlo Esposito, actors Carole Bouquet and Zabou Breitman, and the cast and crew behind the Canal Plus series “The Bureau” will be among the many guest of honor at this year’s Series Mania, which will kick off its 11th edition on March 20.

Returning to the north-eastern French city of Lille, Series Mania will once again offer a broad cross-section of international scripted dramas, with a selection culled from 25 different countries including Chile, Peru, Niger, Senegal and South Korea, alongside high profile productions from the U.S., the U.K. and France.

Among the 38 productions world premiering in Lille, the BBC/Tvnz literary adaption “The Luminaries,” with Eva Green, will play as opening series while the closer remains unannounced.

Once again, Netflix makes a strong showing this year. Beyond bringing the cast and crew of their Paris-set drama “The Eddy,...

International TV event Series Mania has unveiled its 2020 lineup, which boasts world premieres for dramas including The Luminaries, Little Birds and Adult Material.

The event is staged in Lille, northern France, between March 20-28, and is becoming an increasingly prominent part of the international TV calendar, taking place in the week before Mip TV.

Tom Perrotta, creator of HBO’s The Leftovers, will serve as president of the International Competition jury, while guests of honor will include Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito.

BBC Two’s The Luminaries will be screened as part of the opening and closing ceremonies. Based on Eleanor Catton’s 2013 novel of the same name, the six-part season stars Eva Green and is made by Working Title Television.

As part of the International Competition, Sky Atlantic’s Little Birds, a Warp Films adaptation of Anais Nin’s collection of erotic short stories starring Juno Temple, and Channel 4...

Hayley Squires, who starred in Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake and Netflix/BBC co-pro Collateral, is to star in Channel 4 porn drama Adult Material. Rupert Everett of My Best Friend’s Wedding and The Happy Prince also stars.

Squires is to play Jolene Dollar, a mum of three and one of the top porn performers in the UK, in the Lucy Kirkwood-penned series.

Siena Kelly (Vanity Fair), Kerry Godliman (Afterlife), Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones), Julian Ovenden (Downton Abbey) and Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia) also star.

The four-part series, which is produced by Fortitude and The Eddy producer Fifty Fathoms, looks at the porn industry in modern Britain from the perspective of a woman who has been working in it her entire adult life and has seen it grow from an illegitimate backroom enterprise to a mainstream and highly profitable arm of the telecommunications industry.

It follows the...