‘A Discovery Of Witches’ Writer Chris Cornwell Pens Heist Drama ‘A Theft Of Lies’ For Germany’s ZDF Studios & UK Indie Three Tables Productions

Amazon has unveiled its 2022-23 German originals slate as it up investment in the country, with new Prime Video comedy shows and the latest All or Nothing soccer doc among the highlights. At the same time, Prime Video Channels will soon offer Discovery+ and Paramount+ as add-ons.

EXCLUSIVE: Marcus Dunstan, the writer of Saw 3D and Saw VI, is set to direct the horror flick All My Friends Are Dead. Film Mode Entertainment and Roundtable Entertainment will launch sales on the project at the Toronto Film Festival.

“The Swimmers” is inspired by the true story of teenage Olympic athlete and Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini who, in 2015, along with her sister Sara and two others, dragged a boat full of fellow refugees across the Aegean sea. After the girls made it to Germany, Yusra was selected along with ten others to compete with the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

EXCLUSIVE: Director Joachim Hedén (Breaking Surface) is underway in Belgium on shark attack thriller The Last Breath, written by Nick Saltrese (Prayer Before Dawn).

UK-based music firm Greensleeves has settled a legal battle with Chris Brown and his label over the allegations that the musician ripped off an earlier song that it publishes on his 2017 single ‘Privacy’.In a lawsuit filed with the courts in New York in July 2021, Greensleeves said that ‘Privacy’ lifted a line from 1997 dancehall track ‘Tight Up Skirt’, which was recorded by Red Rat. “In creating the infringing work”, the lawsuit stated, “[Brown] took the core musical feature of ‘Tight Up Skirt’ and used it prominently in the infringing work without permission”.As for what that “core musical feature” was, the lawsuit went on: “‘Tight Up Skirt’ and the infringing work share a similar primary identifying feature.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo has shared that it has received multiple offers for remakes from various countries, including the US and Japan.South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency reported on September 6 that Astory, the production company behind the hit Netflix series Extraordinary Attorney Woo, had received proposals for remakes of the series from multiple countries, such as the US, Japan, Turkey and Germany. The offers were made during the 2022 Broadcast Worldwide convention, a broadcasting content market held in Seoul last week.Per Yonhap News Agency, Astory is currently in the midst of sorting out the details of local adaptations of the 16-episode series, sharing that it established a requirement of maintaining these individual adaptations to retain the show’s core themes. These include main character Woo Young-woo’s “warm heart towards the underprivileged and the significance of the whale”.“I think the favourable and hopeful message in [Extraordinary Attorney Woo] will resonate with people all around the world,” Astory CEO Lee Sang-baek said.

London TV Screenings Sets 17 Distributors & 2023 Dates

Warner Bros. Discovery has set another of its European management teams, as Nordic chief Christina Sulebakk lays out the structure of her unit.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Coming off a year of major international growth, Paris-based animation giant Cyber Group Studios is presenting a wide-ranging lineup of new and returning shows at this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in the French seaside town of Biarritz. Among Cyber Group’s current high-profile titles is the new super-powered kid comedy series “50/50 Heroes,” which has sold to ITV in the U.K. and Discovery in Latin America. Commissioned by France Televisions and Disney, “50/50 Heroes” follows the high jinks of Mo and Sam, a half-brother and sister duo, aged 11 and 9, who share super powers. Cyber Group has been expanding its global operations over the past year with a number of major acquisitions, partnerships and joint ventures that have resulted in a number of new projects.

Marta Balaga German helmer Alex Schaad takes on the body-swap trope in Venice Critics’ Week title “Skin Deep,” produced by Walker + Worm Film in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk and Donndorffilm. Beta Cinema, which handles the sales, has shared its trailer exclusively with Variety ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Italian fest. The intimate, character-driven story sees a young couple – played by “And Tomorrow the Entire World” actor Mala Emde and Jonas Dassler – deciding to visit a remote island, hoping they might be able to solve their problems in a place that literally allows you to be someone else. But Schaad, who co-wrote the script with his brother Dimitrij, wasn’t trying to deliver another “Freaky Friday,” eschewing easy laughs for a much more philosophical approach.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are at risk of being “frozen out” of the royal family, a friend of Prince Charles has reportedly claimed. Ahead of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s highly-anticipated visit to the UK next week, a friend of Prince Charles has alleged that the pair’s relationship with the Prince of Wales is fractured despite his desires for a reconciliation. Since stepping back as senior royals in January 2020, Meghan, 40, and 37 year old Harry’s relationship with the royals has come under the spotlight.

With production currently underway on its Milli Vanilli biopic Girl You Know It’s True, Leonine Studios has revealed the first-look photos for the pic produced by Wiedemann & Berg Film.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Georgia Brown, head of Amazon Studios in Europe, is stepping down after five years in the role, Variety can reveal. The executive’s last day at the business is Wednesday (Aug. 31), though her departure is understood to have been in the works for some time. Brown is believed to be moving on to another opportunity, though it’s not yet clear what or where her new role will be. Brown has been a strong and prominent ambassador for Amazon Studios in Europe, and was the first executive hired to lead originals for the continent. In the 2016 to 2018 period, when a number of the global streaming services were first setting up shop internationally and kept their executives largely out of view, Brown was always front and center for Amazon, keen to discuss her local-first strategy.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paris-based company Indie Sales has boarded Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s feature debut “A Tale of Shemroon” which is set to premiere in the New Directors competition at San Sebastian. Set in the north of Tehran, “A Tale of Shemroon” follows Iman and his younger brother Payar who live with their father. After the death of their mother, Iman starts a business thanks to his connections with the city’s affluent youth, but these new opportunities bring him on a dangerous path affecting his family’s destiny. “We are proud to be a part of San Sebastian’s New Directors competition with this new voice from Iranian cinema,” said Nicolas Eschbach at Indie Sales. “Emad (Aleebrahim Dehkordi) depicts the reality of the Iranian youth living in parts of Tehran that have seldom been seen before,” Eschbach continued.

EXCLUSIVE: Next Productions, a subsidiary of sales agency The Exchange, has boarded production, financing and sales of concentration camp survival and escape drama Untold, with Oscar-winning director Aaron Schneider attached to direct.

Prince Harry has made a trip back to Africa.

EXCLUSIVE: Ori Elon, writer and co-creator of Shtisel, is currently working on a biographical mini-series about Austrian-Jewish journalist and playwright Theodor Herzl, who played a significant role in founding the modern state of Israel, Deadline has learned.

Naman Ramachandran Fremantle has scored a raft of sales on “The Trip” director Michael Winterbottom’s drama on outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “This England.”The 88 territories closed for “This England” include Movistar+ (Spain), Viaplay (Nordics and Baltics, Poland and the Netherlands), Cosmote (Greece), OSN TV and OSN+ (MENA), M-Net (South Africa), BBC First (Australia) and TVNZ (New Zealand).