History’s Powerful Female Rulers Series ‘Queens That Changed the World’ Sells Wide (EXCLUSIVE)

The first female director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been announced, and will take over the top job next month.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “The Penguin” series at HBO Max has cast Carmen Ejogo, François Chau, and David H. Holmes in recurring roles, Variety has learned exclusively. The trio join a cast that includes series lead Colin Farrell, who will reprise the role of Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot from “The Batman, as well as Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, and Clancy Brown. Character details for Ejogo, Chau, and Holmes are being kept under wraps. Ejogo’s recent TV credits include “Your Honor,” “I’m a Virgo,” and “True Detective” Season 3. In film, she has starred in features such as the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise, “Alien: Covenant,” and “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” She is repped by WME and Peikoff Mahan.

Official Charts Company this week.The Weeknd tops the list with ‘The Highlights‘, while Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights‘ is placed at number two. Swift also has three further entries on the top 40 list, with ‘1989’ being placed at 23, ‘Folklore’ at 28 and ‘Lover’ at 31.The number three slot on the list was taken up by SZA for her second studio album ‘SOS‘, while Pink took up the number four slot with ‘Trustfall’. Harry Styles‘ ‘Harry’s House‘ rounded up the top five.Other entries on the list came from Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz and Eminem.

There is nothing better than a big pop girl, and this list of the British female solo artists with the most Number 1s in UK chart history is more than proof of that. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent France TV Distribution has scored a raft of deals across its slate of flagship shows, notably Noé Debré’s political satire “Parliament,” whose second season was picked up by Topic in the U.S. “Parliament,” produced by Paris-based Cinétévé, was created by Debré, whose screenwriting include Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winning “Dheepan.” The series is set at the European parliament in Strasbourg and follows a young assistant working for a newly elected member, juggling his ethics, job and love life. The 10-episode series features a young cast from across Europe, including Xavier Lacaille, Liz Kingsman and Philippe Duquesne. The daring show shot partly on location in both French and English languages.

What seemed to be a regular cardboard box full of old pots was discovered to hold antique Chinese treasures and has now sold for £100,000 at an auction.

Midge Ure has sold his catalogue of music rights to investment company MusicBird.The company announced on Tuesday (March 28) that they had acquired the writer’s share, master recording and neighbouring rights income on more than 300 songs across Ure’s solo career and his work with Ultravox, Visage, the Rich Kids, Slik and more.“It is a significant moment for me as an artist and songwriter to see my songs find a new home at MusicBird with people who are genuinely passionate about music,” said Ure. “I think this team will take the songs to new audiences and I am excited to be working with them on that.”It is not known how much the catalogue was sold for.Ure was a member in bands such as Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids, Visage and was the lead singer of Ultravox. He produced, co-wrote and performed on several synth-pop and new wave classics such as ‘Fade to Grey’ by Visage, the Ultravox hits ‘Vienna’ and ‘Dancing with Tears in My Eyes’ and his UK Number One hit ‘If I Was’, taken from his top 10 album ‘The Gift’.He also co-wrote and produced the 1984 Band Aid charity single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ – which was not part of the MusicBird acquisition.Back in 2019, the singer and his charity single co-writer and producer Bob Geldof angrily denied rumours that they took any of the proceeds from Band Aid.The song was that year’s Christmas Number One and went on to be the best-selling single of all-time in Britain at one point.

EXCLUSIVE: Independent Talent, the talent agency that boasts Jodie Comer and Bill Nighy among its clients, has revealed that it made £7.3M ($9M) selling its stake in Killing Eve producer Sid Gentle Films.

The world trailer premiere of “Bones of Crows” has arrived.

Brix Smith has announced details of a UK summer headline tour with her new band ‘The All Female Super Group’.The post-punk icon, who was a member of The Fall and others, founded her new band last year for a debut UK tour, and will head back out on the road this summer.“I’m going on tour,” Smith said in a statement. The All Female Super Group and I are hitting the road from May for our ‘Valley Of The Dolls’ UK tour.

Aristomenis Tsirbas’s ‘Timescape’ Sells WorldwideBudapest-based sales outfit Luminescence has unveiled a slew of deals for Canadian director Aristomenis Tsirbas’s adventure film Timescape. Newcomers Sofian Oleniuk and Lola Rossignol-Arts star as two youngsters who travel back in time to prehistoric times, where they encounter dinosaurs while trying to escape from an approaching asteroid. Luminescence took the film to the EFM where it secured deals to Australia (Eagle), France (Factoris), Hungary (ADS), Italy (Plaion), Japan (Nikkatsu), Korea (Yejilim), Latin America (Leda Films), CIS (,Nashe Kino), Middle East (Front Row), South Africa (Filmfinity) in Taiwan (Cola Films) and the UK (Dazzler). The film was released theatrically in Canada via TVA Films in late 2022. XYZ Films acquired all U.S. rights earlier this year. The film was produced by David-Alexandre Coiteux at Fullum Films and Faisal Toor at Empress Road Pictures.

Christine & The Queens has announced a UK and European ‘PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE’ tour for 2023 – find the details below and purchase tickets here.The French singer-songwriter’s new album ‘PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE’ is due for release June 9 and will follow-up last year’s ‘Redcar les adorables étoiles’.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor GlobeScreen Auditoriums has taken French rights to “Blix Not Bombs,” a documentary about former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, who was given the task of looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in the period running up to the U.S.-led invasion of the country 20 years ago. The deal was closed by Toronto-based sales agent Syndicado Film Sales, which is also an executive producer on the film. The film had its world premiere at Copenhagen documentary festival CPH:DOX on Monday, the anniversary of the invasion. In the film, Czech-Swedish filmmaker Greta Stocklassa interviews the Swedish diplomatic, now 94 years old, about what happened in the months leading up to war. He describes his meetings with George W. Bush and Tony Blair, his frustration when Colin Powell gave his pivotal speech in the UN Security Council, and his feeling of emptiness when the U.S. started the invasion, despite his reports that his team had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Captain of the England women’s football team Leah Williamson is set to become the first female footballer to read a CBeebies Bedtime Story. The 25-year-old Arsenal captain led the Lionesses to victory in the Euro 2022 final against Germany last summer. Williamson will read Remarkably You by Pat Zietlow Miller, an uplifting story that reassures children that being different and unique is something to be celebrated.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While she retired prematurely at the age of 39, Brigitte Bardot has left an indelible mark on France’s popular culture in the 1960’s and 1970’s. With her wild blonde mane, smoky eyes and pouty lips, Bardot became a symbol of a modern and effortlessly sexy French woman, and a style emblem that continues to inspire current trends. The event series “Bardot,” which is penned and directed by Daniele Thompson (“The Queen Margot”) and Christopher Thompson (“La bûche”), world premiered at Series Mania Festival to unanimous praise and has been pre-sold by Federation nearly worldwide. “‘Bardot’ is like the French ‘The Crown’ because Bardot embodied France, and through her journey we reminisce about many parts of France’s history and popular culture in the 1950’s and 1960’s,” Federation’s boss and “Bardot” producer Pascal Breton told Variety.

A 104-year-old woman is finally saying goodbye to her childhood home after living there for more than a century. Nancy ‘Joan’ Gifford is putting her three-bed terraced property up for sale after her parents bought the house for just £200 back in 1921.

Ed Meza @edmezavar International distributor Eccho Rights has inked landmark deals for Turkish drama series “Golden Boy” with broadcasters in Sweden and Finland.The show, which has enjoyed huge success on Turkey’s Star TV since launching in September 2022, is the first Turkish drama to be picked up by Swedish and Finnish broadcasters. In Sweden, TV4 acquired “Golden Boy” for its TV4Gold and Sjuan linear channels, as well as streamers CMore and TV4 Play. In Finland, Eccho Rights’ deal with MTV Oy represents the first time ever that a Turkish series has been licensed by a Finnish broadcast group, with “Golden Boy” to stream on CMore and Katsomo in Finland.

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC is delving into the history of Soho’s criminal underworld for its next big-budget drama series.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Series Mania has always been about discovery: Of drama series as an art form, in its early days from launch in 2009; then of key players on a burgeoning international premium TV scene. Series Mania’s International Panorama now catches a new wave of creatives transitioning from film to scripted TV – Israel’s Yaron Shani with “Innermost,” Spain’s Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo with episodes of “Apagón”; and highlights notable emerging auteurs: Denmark’s Kasper Møller Rask, Canada’s Alexis Durand-Brault, Spain’s Fran Araujo, Pakistan’s Assim Abassi and Germany’s Jakob and Jonas Weydemann.  But for having already bowed at national festivals, some of the 12 titles below could well have been in the running for a Competition berth. 

‘My King Charles’ Doc Picked Up Around The World