Amazon Studios is Rolling Out Diversity Playbook in Europe and Globally

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterRobert Pattinson’s “The Batman” towered over international box office charts, collecting $120 million from 74 overseas markets.After debuting to $128.5 million in North America, the Warner Bros. comic book adventure has generated $248.5 million globally to date.

Naman Ramachandran Premium documentary titles featuring iconic musicians including John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Tupac Shakur and Amy Winehouse have sold widely for BBC Studios.Rogan productions’ feature-length documentary for BBC Two, “Freddie Mercury: The Final Act,” charts the final chapter of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury’s life story. International sales include the U.S.

Fremantle International Bolsters Scripted

BBC Studios And Sky Deutschland Strike Factual Content Deal

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios and Sky Deutschland have agreed an output deal for factual content in Germany.The long-term partnership agreement will see Sky Deutschland as the pay TV home for BBC Studios premium factual content in Germany, which will include 150 hours of factual titles from the BBC Studios catalogue. The factual output from BBC Studios can be seen on Sky Deutschland’s Sky Nature and Sky Documentaries channels.BBC Studios titles acquired under the deal include “Greta Thunberg A Year to Change the World,” “Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic,” “David Attenborough: The Sound of Nature” and “Primates.” In 2019, BBC Studios signed a partnership with Germany’s ZDF to produce factual shows, which includes the upcoming “Green Planet” presented by David Attenborough, alongside co-developing scripted TV series.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterSony’s video game adaptation “Uncharted,” starring Tom Holland as street-smart treasure hunter Nathan Drake, had another solid showing at the international box office.Over the weekend, the PG-13 video game adaptation collected $35 million from 64 overseas territories, pushing its international tally to $143 million. With $83 million in North American ticket sales, “Uncharted” has generated $226.4 million globally so far. That haul is impressive because “Uncharted” has yet to open in China (March 14), which currently stands as the world’s biggest theatrical market.“Uncharted” continues to pull in crowds in the United Kingdom, Holland’s birthplace.

ITV Studios Strikes Major CBC Content Deal

Amazon Studios will further dive into the world of video game adaptations, signing an overall deal with one of the production companies behind the Sonic The Hedgehog film. 

Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project, The Office) has partnered with Amazon to launch Mindy’s Book Studio, a boutique publishing works selected by Kaling, which the six-time Emmy nominee will look to adapt for film in concert with Amazon Studios.

Channel 4 Pre-Buys ‘Hitler: A Life In Pictures’

Naman Ramachandran Amazon Prime Video and Germany’s Leonine Studios are expanding their existing partnership with a multi-year license agreement.Under the deal, Prime Video gets exclusive second window SVOD-rights for a six-month period to upcoming theatrical feature films and home entertainment titles from Leonine’s slate and also includes non-exclusive SVOD rights to titles from Leonine’s content library.Titles include Keanu Reeves’ “John Wick 4” and its spin-off “Ballerina,” starring Ana de Armas; Channing Tatum’s directorial debut “Dog”; Roland Emmerich’s “Moonfall,” starring Halle Berry; Nicolas Cage action-comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”; Guillaume Canet’s “Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom,” with Gilles Lellouche, Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel and soccer star Zlatan Imbrahimović; Jennifer Lopez starrer “Shotgun Wedding”; and Leonine Studios co-production “The School of Magical Animals 2,” the sequel to Germany’s most successful theatrical release of 2021. Leonine Studios CEO Fred Kogel said: “It’s fantastic that we can expand our long-standing partnership with Prime Video by this agreement and achieve another important milestone for our licensing business with premium content.

Amazon Prime Video has signed an expanded multi-year licensing deal for Germany and Austria with Leonine Studios.

Amazon Prime Video is rolling out on-set counsellors to a number of its productions following the success of the measure on Barry Jenkins’ Underground Railroad. 

Penzing Studios, a significant film and TV studio facility development, has begun a phased opening plan in a former air base 30 miles west of Munich.

The European heads of Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max and Paramount+ have talked up their autonomy from the U.S., with Amazon Studios Europe boss Georgia Brown stating: “In my head we’re a European streamer.”

Jamie Lang Penzing Studios is in expansion mode, and has begun hosting film and TV shoots in the former airbase 30 KM west of Munich.The refurbished airplane hangars already feature a full-scale virtual production stage with additional sound stages set to open in June and a major investment planned.Developers plan to invest an additional €100 million ($113 million) over the next three years to expand the facility to 12 sound stages with 25,000 square meters of production space and 15,000-square-meters of workshop and office spaces, they announced in a statement on Monday. The new hub will also house post-production, visual effects, gaming, digital media, and technology companies, educational opportunities.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentZDF Enterprises, a key production-distribution component of one of Europe’s biggest public broadcaster powerhouses, Germany’s ZDF, is set to operate under the new name of ZDF Studios.Effective from April 1, the title, announced by ZDF Enterprises President and CEO Fred Burcksen on Monday in Mainz, captures much better ZDFE’s current business reach, scale and ambitions.“We are a studio, we cover all elements of our industry, from early development to longtail sales. The new name fits our business model much better and reflects our production and distribution expertise,” Burcksen said.ZDF Enterprises was launched in 1993 to handle worldwide program distribution as new content-avid private TV networks sprang up in Europe and beyond and also to deal with the business affairs of the acquisition of programs from around the world.

EXCLUSIVE: The replicants are heading to the small-screen as Amazon Studios has put a live-action series set in the Blade Runner universe into development.

Afternoon International Insiders. The team is in Berlin and EFM is hotting up. We’ve got the latest from Germany and more so read on.