Fremantle International Bolsters Scripted; BBC Studios MX Player Deal; Armoza Formats Production – Global Briefs

Aimee Lou Wood Leads UK Comedy Cast

Fremantle Boosts Revenue By 25% For RTL Group

Blink49 Studios To Adapt ‘Things To Do When It’s Raining’

In its sophomore outing, Warner Bros/DC’s The Batman kept a firm grip on the international box office, dropping just 42% to add $66.6M from 76 offshore markets. That brings the overseas cume through Sunday to $224.7M for $463.2M global. As the Robert Pattinson-starrer heads to $500M worldwide this week, in like-for-like markets and using today’s exchange rates, it’s currently tracking 132% ahead of pandemic comp Godzilla Vs Kong and is 44% above Wonder Woman, 36% ahead of The Dark Knight and 24% over Justice League.

Fremantle has acquired a 25% stake in Henrik Bastin’s Fabel Entertainment, the international development and production outfit behind Prime Video’s cop drama series Bosch.

Angelina Jolie is expanding her reach as an actor and filmmaker, thanks to a new multi-year deal with Freemantle.

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.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios has inked its first major factual multi-year content deal in Italy with Mediaset, the country’s top private generalist TV network. The BBC’s long-term agreement with Mediaset covers first-window exclusive pre-sales in Italy of its natural history shows including its upcoming “Frozen Planet II,” “Dynasties II” and “Planet Earth III.” The Mediaset package deal also comprises providing an additional annual 25 hours of content for Mediaset’s Focus Channel, for an unspecified number of years.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentFremantle has acquired a 70% stake in Italy’s Lux Vide, the prominent TV production company that has been steadily raising its standing in the international arena, most recently with the high-end TV series “Medici,” “Devils” and “Leonardo.”The long-gestating Lux Vide deal, which closed on Thursday, marks the latest acquisition by the expanding RTL-owned production and distribution giant. Fremantle, which has been on a buying spree, now owns or controls a panoply of independently operated production shingles across Europe, as well as in Israel, Australia and the U.S.Their stated goal is to invest and grow in the global scripted arena where, by their count, Fremantle delivered 81 scripted shows in 2021, including BBC One hit “The Responder,” HBO Max series “Lust,” from Sweden’s Miso Film, and Italian dystopian drama “Anna.” Previous Fremantle investments include acquiring the 12 former Nent Studios production labels in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark (now rebranded This is Nice Group); Australian-American television production company Eureka Productions; U.K.-based Naked Entertainment; French label Kwai; and Israel’s Abot Hameiri, among others.The Lux purchase also marks Fremantle’s third acquisition of a production company in Italy, where the company already owns Wildside and The Apartment, the outfit behind Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-nominated “The Hand of God.” Fremantle also recently inked a pact with Italy’s Cinecittà involving the long-term rental of six sound stages at the iconic Rome studios.Founded in 1992 by Ettore Bernabei, who was a long-time former chief of Italian pubcaster RAI, Lux Vide has since been headed by his progeny, Matilde and Luca Bernabei.

Fremantle has acquired 70% of Lux Vide, the 30-year-old Italian producer of Medici, Leonardo and Coco Chanel.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC, has set a content deal with MX Player, India’s largest AVOD service, which also has a strong reach across Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Pakistan. The partnership kicks off with Simon Allen‘s “The Watch,” a series inspired by the characters in Terry Pratchett’s bestselling “Discworld” novels, which follows an unlikely group of misfits, The City Watch, who are forced to find the guts to save the world, surprising even themselves in the process; and “Line of Duty” creator Jed Mercurio‘s “Critical,” set in a major trauma center that only deals with the most serious cases, following an emergency medical team that battles through the vital first hour of care to save lives that hang in balance.

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.

Bad Wolf Co-Founder Jane Tranter And Sony’s Wayne Garvie To Keynote Mip TV

Refresh for latest…: Sony’s Uncharted handily crossed the $200M mark globally this weekend, after adding $35M from 64 overseas markets and $23.3M domestically. The international box office cume is now $143M. Worldwide, the Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg-starrer counts $226.4M.

Drive My Car,” a three-hour Japanese film; “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,” only the second Oscar submission (and first nom) from Bhutan; Paolo Sorrentino’s “Hand of God,” the Italian helmer’s second visit to the Academy Awards; Denmark’s “Flee,” an animated tale of an Afghan refugee; and Norway’s “The Worst Person in the World.”Three of the films even broke out of the international film race, with “Drive My Car” drawing noms for best pic, adapted screenplay and director; “Flee” also earned nominations for animation and doc, while “The Worst Person in the World” nabbed a nom in original screenplay.Joachim Trier, who directed “Worst Person in the World” says of the noms: “The Academy wants a broader spectrum of people from across the world looking at films and voting. It’s a more international community.

Nancy Dell’Olio has signed up for ‘Celebrity MasterChef’. The former ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ contestant - and ex-girlfriend of former England football manager Sven Goran-Eriksson - is said to have joined the line-up for the star-studded BBC cooking competition, according to the Daily Star newspaper's Hot TV column. That is despite the 60-year-old lawyer once admitting she "doesn't enjoy cooking much".

K.J. Yossman Sky have released first look images for a new Sky Original drama, “Unwanted.”Inspired by the book “Bilal,” an investigative book from journalist Fabrizio Gatti, the eight-part series tells the story of an undercover human rights defender who is helping migrants journey from Africa to Europe as they battle human traffickers and government officials.Stefano Bises (“Gomorrah”) created and wrote the series in collaboration with with the collaboration of Alessandro Valenti, Bernardo Pellegrini and Michela Straniero.

Resembling more of a personal tribute than exhaustive biography, Pietro Marcello‘s Lucio Dalla documentary, “For Lucio,” takes its title as an invitation. A rambling eulogy that is just as often confusing as it is profound, Marcello’s wisp of a film (running less than 80 minutes) may be missing key context for those not already versed in the life and music of the politically-oriented Italian singer-songwriter.