Series Mania Crowns ‘Apples Never Fall’ Star Annette Bening, Garry Kasparov-Centered ‘Rematch’

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor The Ides of March were marked this year by a three-way race among high profile filmmakers – Peter Farrelly, Doug Liman and Guy Ritchie – with original streaming film and TV series debuts across Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. But the sleeper success story of the week belonged to Netflix’s Lindsay Lohan rom com movie “Irish Wish.” Ritchie made a splashy debut on March 7 with Netflix’s “The Gentlemen,” an eight-episode TV heist drama delivered in the director’s signature style.

Annette Bening‘s first major TV series role has won the five-time Oscar nominee the Best Actress prize at this year’s Series Mania.

Series Mania was Warner Bros. Discovery’s European roll-out timeline for Max, announced Thursday at the climax of the Series Mania’s Lille Dialogues. The most keenly anticipated session was nearly Series Mania’ Forum first: a Netflix showcase hosted by a confident Larry Tanz who significantly proved the only goal streamer exec to drill down on volume commitment.

EXCLUSIVE: Apples Never Fall is off to a strong start on Peacock.

Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald has won the €50,000 ($54,000) Series Mania Seriesmakers award.

Christian Schwochow has signed up to direct , the upcoming Constantin Film and Big Light Productions scripted series based on events surrounding the Nuremberg trials that took place in the wake of World War Two.

Sony Pictures Television‘s President of International Production, Wayne Garvie, has said the scripted TV landscape in the post-peak TV era is like “going back to the future” — especially with his Netflix hits The Crown and Sex Education coming to an end.

EXCLUSIVE: Sky Studios and Groenlandia are readying feature film director Sydney Sibilia’s first TV drama series. Someone Killed Spiderman – Accidentally Famous (working title) is for Sky Italia and is about a non-conformist teenager who becomes on half of successful musical duo 883.

Disney+ unveiled new originals out of France, Germany and Spain at Series Mania, with period drama and a pair of true crime projects added to a 70-part Spanish novella that will be stripped through the week.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor A panel moderated by the European Audiovisual Observatory at Series Mania Tuesday looked at four key trends in series production in Europe. Warning Signs?Gilles Fontaine, EAO’s head of department for market information, said there were warning signs of a downward trend in the number of seasons being produced, first in the U.S.

Ben Croll An explosive political drama retracing the 2018 murders of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, “Our People” claimed the best project award at this year’s Series Mania Forum. Winning €50,000 ($54,318) in prize money and earning an enhanced international stature, the unflinching miniseries should now see an easier path forward – particularly given the chilly reception it found with funding authorities in native Slovakia. “We thought it impossible,” said director Tereza Nvotova as she claimed the Series Mania prize.

A small pro-Palestine protest formed outside Series Mania in France on Tuesday.

EXCLUSIVE: AGC Television is dropping a hot TV project into this week’s Series Mania market in Lille.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Belgian filmmaker Sofie Benoot‘s “Apple Cider Vinegar,” which has its world premiere in the International Competition section of Visions du Réel, has been picked up for world sales by Filmotor. The trailer and poster are being released exclusively by Variety. The film is narrated by actor Sian Phillips, who appeared in “I, Claudius” and David Lynch’s “Dune,” and is a veteran nature documentary narrator.

Creatives behind sperm donor series All & Eva have said the show represents a new wave of auteur-driven Scandi drama.

Caroline Brew editor SPOILER ALERT:This story contains major spoilers for “Apples Never Fall,” now streaming on Peacock. Known for her twisty and darkly humorous thrillers, Liane Moriarty is the author behind the source material for TV hits like HBO’s “Big Little Lies” and Hulu’s “Nine Perfect Strangers.” Like many of her stories, the newest Moriarty adaptation — Peacock’s “Apples Never Fall” — is centered on a suspenseful mystery, but showrunner Melanie Marnich was just as interested in what the author had to say about the complexities of family dynamics. “You have to know these people love each other, otherwise they can’t cause each other pain,” Marnich told Variety at an early screening event for the series.

Marta Balaga Netflix’s big gamble, “3 Body Problem” – created by “Game of Thrones” masterminds David Benioff and D.B.Weiss with Alexander Woo – opened Lille’s Series Mania on Friday, immediately dividing the viewers on a series well reviewed by Variety. “It’s a very ambitious show and it has a great scale, but I wonder when all the hooks they got into me will reward me with knowledge. I see a lot of potential, but I don’t see a clear path,” actor Malick Bauer told Variety after the screening.

EXCLUSIVE John Bradley didn’t know what he was getting into with 3 Body Problem. The Game Of Thrones star plays physicist and entrepreneur Jack Rooney in the upcoming sci-fi epic. Speaking to Deadline, he said that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss initially told him about the character they had written for him, but very little else: “David and Dan got in touch with me and said, ‘We’re doing this new thing, we’re not going to tell you what it is, but we’ve written this part for you’.”

Caroline Brew editor From pizza nights to tennis lessons to an Annette Bening film festival, the cast of Peacock’s “Apples Never Fall” was determined to bond like a really family. At Tuesday night’s premiere, Bening, Sam Neill, Jake Lacy and more shared their favorite memories from shooting the series in Australia and how they got into their respective characters. Based on “Big Little Lies” author Liane Moriarty’s novel of the same name, “Apples Never Fall” follows former tennis coaches Stan (Neill) and Joy (Bening) Delaney, who sell their tennis academy and hope to spend more time with their adult children (Alison Brie, Lacy, Conor Merrigan-Turner and Essie Randles).

Apples Never Fall is that perfect binge that mixes all the elements of a New York Times best-selling book (by , in this case) with an appealing cast (Annette Bening, Sam Neill, , …) and edge-of-your-seat, clever twists. But striking the right tone for Apples Never Fall, the series, while rearranging the book format was a high-wire act that only Moriarity (who is also an excutive producer) and showrunner/EP Melanie Marnich could have pulled off.“Any book worth its salt is going to be a tough adaptation because of the bounty of material but also its complexity," Marnich tells Glamour.