BBC Swoops on ‘Marie Antoinette’ From ‘The Favourite’ Writer Deborah Davis (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMusic Box has acquired Xavier Giannoli’s “Lost Illusions,” a sprawling costume drama with Benjamin Voisin (“Summer of 85”) and Xavier Dolan (“Mommy”), that competed at the Venice Film Festival and played at San Sebastian.A critically acclaimed film adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s literary masterpiece, “Les Illusions perdues,” the movie has now been sold in key markets by Gaumont.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentWarnerMedia International has appointed well-respected Canal Plus executive Vera Peltekian as VP and commissioning editor of original production for France. Based in Paris, Vera will commission original programming for HBO Max.Peltekian will join the company in November and will be part of HBO Max’s pan-regional team responsible for commissioning and producing drama, comedy, documentary and unscripted content in the EMEA region.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“History of the World, Part I” is finally getting a Part II, with Hulu ordering a variety series followup to the classic Mel Brooks comedy film, Variety has learned exclusively.“History of the World, Part II” is described as a sequel to the 1981 film. The film was made up of segments set during different periods of world history.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLeading arthouse sales agency The Match Factory has debuted the international trailer (see below) for the gripping, tender-hearted prison drama “Great Freedom,” which won the Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, and has revealed the latest list of international distributors.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s RAI Com, which is the sales arm of Italian state broadcaster RAI, is scoring sales to key territories on Gabriele Mainetti’s “Freaks Out,” following the genre-bending film’s launch in competition at Venice.Mainetti’s lavish historical fantasy set in 1943 Rome, where four “freaks” who work in a circus are left to their own devices when the Eternal City is bombed by Allied Forces, has been sold to Metropolitan Film for France and to The Klockwork

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentSybel, France’s rising subscription-based podcast platform, has reached a two-year agreement with the French audio producers guild (PIA) to set up a revenue sharing model for content creators. The service is also expanding with the launch of a freemium model which will be financed by advertising and will include 500 more podcast titles.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentRomain Quirot’s “Paul W.R.’s Last Journey,” an ambitious film mixing science fiction and ecological tale, has been sold by Kinology (“Annette”) to major distributors, including Samuel Goldwyn Films in North America.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentEuropean pay-TV platform Sky will unveil an Italian adaptation of French hit series “Call My Agent,” and thriller series “Europa,” directed by German filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel, who helmed the Oscar-nominated “Downfall,” at an event Friday at the Rome MIA Market.The Italian “Call My Agent” remake is being produced by Palomar, the Rome-based company controlled by France’s Mediawan, which originated the hit show set at a Parisian talent agency

Alexander Durie One of the top winners announced on Wednesday night at Canneseries was the Banijay-Rights-sold “Countrymen,” from Norwegian pubcaster NRK in co-production with Rubicon and Arte France.The show took home two awards, one for performance for its whole cast, and a High-School Best Series Prize, voted by students from local lycées.The long-format TV series was co-written by revered Norwegian screenwriter Anne Bjørnstad (“Lilyhammer,” “Beforeigners”) alongside newcomer writer-director

Addie Morfoot ContributorGeorge Clooney and Grant Heslov have joined Austrian director Friedrich Moser’s feature documentary “How to Build a Truth Engine” as executive producers through their Smokehouse Pictures banner.The docu, now in the final stages of filming, tackles investigative journalism and the fight against fake news.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAmazon Prime Video is launching the Victorine Narrative Lab, a new mentoring program for aspiring writers, in collaboration with the French Riviera city of Nice and the top-ranking French film school Louis-Lumiere.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentTaleseed, a Paris-based outfit launched over a year ago by a trio of experienced French media executives, is developing “Mousquetaires,” a contemporary series inspired by Alexandre Dumas’ classic “The Three Musketeers.”The banner, which is headquartered in the Parisian start-up campus Station F, was founded by Valérie Billaut, Stéphane Cadoch and Hugues Laigneau.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThierry Ardisson, a famous French TV journalist, host and producer known for roasting some of the biggest stars and political figures in modern history, has teamed up with Mediawan’s 3eme Oeil Productions to resuscitate late icons in “L’hotel du Temps.” Pioneering the use of an A.I.-generated tool called FaceRetriever, “L’Hotel du Temps” has allowed Ardisson to fulfil his wildest dream: Travel back in time and bring back legendary figures, including

Lupin,” Netflix and French star Omar Sy have entered a multi-year feature film deal.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In a series of key pacts for Argentine political horror pic, “History of the Occult,” Netflix has snapped up streaming rights to the film for Spain and Latin America, which it plans to drop on Oct.

Naman Ramachandran ViacomCBS‘s free streaming television service Pluto TV has partnered with BBC Studios to add three new channels to the platform across Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and Spain.A new Doctor Who channel in France will feature the first 10 seasons of the BBC action-adventure series that explores space and time, in addition to the series’ Christmas specials, including “Snowmen,” “Last Christmas” and “Day of The Doctor.” The Doctor Who channel on Pluto TV in Spain features

Clayton Davis Audrey Diwan’s “Happening,” one of the three shortlisted films to represent France for the upcoming 94th Academy Awards, will make its North American premiere at the Chicago Film Festival as part of the Global Currants and Women in Cinema program on Saturday, Oct.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentElodie Polo-Ackermann, who runs the Mediawan-owned Paris-based banner Imagissime, has become one of Europe’s key documentary producers since delivering “Who Killed Little Gregory?,” a different kind of true crime series which marked Netflix’s first documentary original in France.

David Fincher‘s upcoming Netflix movie, “The Killer” starring Michael Fassbender, was supposed to shoot this fall in Paris with Oscar-winning “Mank” cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt behind the camera. That’s now slightly changed, but we’ve also received confirmation about something we’ve been hearing about for months: Tilda Swinton is going to co-star in the assassin thriller based on a French graphic novel series.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentIn a massive sales roll-out, Fremantle has sold “Arctic Drift: A Year in the Ice,” about the biggest ever Arctic climate research expedition, in a total 170 territories globally.The array of buyers take in Amazon Prime Video for Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Channel 4 in the U.K., PBS science series Nova in the U.S., and France Télévisions.“Arctic Drift” follows a year of the unprecedented MOSAiC expedition, led by Germany’s Alfred Wegener