Sweden’s SVT Orders ‘Whiskey On The Rocks’; Netflix Women Pitch Contest Winners; Keshet International Hire; ‘Gogglebox’ Wales; Red Arrow Mipcom Scripted — Global Briefs

Gal Gadot stars in the upcoming action film Heart of Stone and Netflix unveiled a first look during the Tudum fan event!

“Heart of Stone” got its first sneak peek as part of Netflix’s Tudum event, with Gadot hyping the “extremely epic” film alongside co-stars Jamie Dornan and Alia Bhatt. Action thrillers have been a big part of Tudum, which showcases the streamer’s upcoming original series and films.

Come in quickly, Insiders. It’s getting colder out there. Jesse Whittock here with a rundown of this week’s top news and analysis, coming to you from across Europe.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Les Films du Losange has closed a raft of major deals on Kasja Naess’s animated feature “Titina” which is produced by the teams behind the Oscar-nominated film “The Triplets of Belleville” and Oscar-winning short “The Danish Poet.” “Titina” will world premiere at Animation Is Film Festival, which takes place Oct. 21-23, and is produced by GKids, in collaboration with Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Variety. Budgeted at $8.5 million, the Norwegian animated movie was produced by Mikrofilm (“The Danish Poet”) and Vivi Film (“The Triplets of Belleville”). The film tells the real-life story of a fox terrier that accompanied her master on an expedition to the North Pole in an air balloon in the 1920’s. It will be released in Norway by Norsk Film Distribusjon, and in France by Les Films du Losange.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Netflix has unveiled first look images of Darren Star’s Emmy-nominated hit show “Emily in Paris” season three. The show’s third and fourth seasons are currently filming in France. Netflix will be unveiling some special news on “Emily in Paris” on Sept. 24 during its virtual Tudum event. The third season brings back producer and star Lily Collins also returns Lily Collins, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, Lucien Laviscount, Lucas Bravo, Ashley Park and Camille Razat, among others. Season three follows Emily as she finds herself at a crucial crossroads in every aspect of her life. Faced with two very different paths, Emily will have to decide exactly where her loyalties lie — at work and in her romantic life — and what those decisions mean for her future in France, all while continuing to immerse herself in the adventures and surprising twists and turns that life in Paris provides.  The first images unveiled today suggest Emily will reunite with her British boyfriend, played by Laviscount.

After movies, shows, and docs about Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, and others, Netflix now turns its attention to one of America’s most infamous serial killers: Jeffrey Dahmer. And “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” sees the streamer give its subject the deluxe treatment.

“The Midnight Club” series, and death abounds in the next show from “The Haunting of Hill House,” “The Haunting of Bly Manor” and “Midnight Mass” creator Mike Flanagan.The show is based on the beloved Christopher Pike novel of the same name and takes place at a hospice with a mysterious history, where the eight members of the Midnight Club (all of whom are terminally ill) meet each night at midnight to tell sinister stories – and to look for signs of the supernatural from the beyond.Mike Flanagan executive produces and directs the show alongside Trevor Macy through their Intrepid Pictures and Leah Fong. Flanagan and Fong are the show’s creators, while Pike serves as an executive producer.The first season spans 10 one-hour episodes and stars Iman Benson, Igby Rigney, Ruth Codd, Annarah Cymone, Chris Sumpter, Adia, Aya Furukawa, Sauriyan Sapkota, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan, with Zach Gilford and Heather Langenkamp.This is the latest horror-tinged Netflix series from Flanagan, who also directed the Warner Bros.

Liza Foreman Backing a film in which Johnny Depp will play French King Louis XV is what Wild Bunch International head Vincent Maraval describes as part of the risk taking that is essential to this business. In a keynote interview with CAA Media Finance’s Roeg Sutherland at San Sebastian’s first Creative Investors Conference on Monday, Maraval discussed his 23 years in the business – failing to bet on “Black Swan,” but going for it with Depp’s first film since the Amber Heard trial.  “The film [“Jeanne du Barry”] is that sometimes we need to take a risk, and this risk is much higher,” said Maraval. “We are doing Johnny Depp playing Louis XV. People said don’t do a movie with him, but we liked it. I remember the discussion we had with the producer behind it who said: ‘Do you think we are doing something stupid?’ I said: ‘Probably, but what’s left if not?”

Michaela Zee editor Netflix has released the official trailer of Ryan Murphy’s true crime series “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” starring “American Horror Story” alum Evan Peters in the titular role. The 10-episode limited series follows the story of real-life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Primarily told from the perspective of Dahmer’s victims, the series will reportedly take place from the 1960s to early 1990s. “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” will also explore the incompetence of the Wisconsin police during the murder investigations, allowing Dahmer to continue his killing spree.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix and Ubisoft have partnered on a new “Assassin’s Creed” mobile game and two other mobile titles that will be available exclusively on mobile to Netflix members globally with no ads or in-house purchases. The other two titles are a new “Valiant Hearts” game, which is a sequel to Ubisoft’s award-winning game “Valiant Hearts: The Great War,” directed by its original core team but featuring a new story, and a sequel to Ubisoft’s “The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot” mobile game, which was shut down in 2016. All three mobile games will be available to Netflix members in 2023.

A group of Gulf states are threatening Netflix with legal action if the streamer does not remove what they class as content that “contradicts” Islamic values. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a statement saying it has contacted the SVoD to demand the content, which was not specified publicly, is removed.

Netflix has announced it has commissioned The Vince Staples Show, a fictional comedy series loosely inspired Vince Staples and his life story. Staples is joined by producers Kenya Barris, best known for creating Black-ish, Corey Smyth and Calmatic.

Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries in the Middle East have told global streaming giant Netflix to remove un-Islamic content. Although not specified, this is understood to mean that it should take down content including LGBTQ elements. The announcement was made Tuesday by the Committee of the Electronic Media Officials within the Gulf Cooperation Council, a trade and political association that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. issued similar, separate statements. Associated Press reported that Saudi state television also aired video of an interview it conducted with a woman it identified as a behavioral consultant who described Netflix as being an “official sponsor of homosexuality.” It aired footage of a cartoon that had two women embrace, though the footage was blurred out. “Saudi state television also aired a segment suggesting Netflix could be banned in the kingdom over that programming reaching children,” AP reported.

The UK TV boom that brought you the likes of Netflix’s The Crown may be slowing, with producer trade body Pact’s latest Census showing the lowest level of international TV revenue since 2017 and streamer spend dropping by £50M ($57.7M).

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent It took a pandemic and a lockdown for “Drive” director Nicolas Winding Refn to make a directorial comeback in Denmark, where he had delivered the “Pusher” trilogy early in his career. “Sometimes the strangest things come in mysterious ways, and this is one of those,” Refn says of “Copenhagen Cowboy,” his Netflix original series, slated to world premiere Sept. 9 at the Venice Film Festival. Since “Drive,” Winding Refn has directed the Bangkok-set thriller “Only God Forgives,” with “Drive” star Ryan Gosling; “The Neon Demon,” with Elle Fanning playing an aspiring model in Los Angeles.; and the Amazon Prime Video series “Too Old to Die Young,” starring Miles Teller as a grieving cop in crime-ridden Southern California. He was preparing another project set abroad when the pandemic hit.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix and the European Producers Club (EPC) have revealed the winners of a pitch contest for fictional series at the ongoing Venice Film Festival. The pitch contest is a joint initiative by EPC and Netflix to help create new opportunities for European women producers. It was launched at Series Mania in March, and open to EPC producers working for women-owned companies. Following a selection process by an independent jury, composed of Cia Edstrom, Francine Raveney and Olivier Kohn, the competition finalists pitched their projects to the Netflix content team. Anna Mannion of Tri Moon Films, Ireland, won the first prize of €50,000 ($49,762), while Ada Solomon of Microfilm, Romania, won the second prize of €20,000.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After the edgy crime comedy “The World Is Yours,” Romain Gavras is back with thriller “Athena.” Produced by Paris-based Iconoclast for Netflix, the ambitious, €15 million film ($15 million) unfolds in the aftermath of the tragic killing of a young boy. A leaked video showing the boy as a victim of police brutality goes viral and ignites an all-out war in an imaginary community called Athena. It’s the first French movie that Netflix is presenting in competition at the Venice Film Festival. “Athena” tells the story of the boy’s three siblings, who are responding to the tragedy in different ways. French star Dali Benssalah (“Les Sauvages,” “No Time to Die”) plays the older brother, Abdel, a French soldier. Faced with an impossible moral dilemma, Abdel is called back from the frontline to help diffuse the all-out war that has been sparked by his younger brother Karim (Sami Slimane), who wants revenge. Athena becomes the backdrop of a tragedy for both the family and its entire community. The film’s stellar cast also includes Ouassini Embarek, Anthony Bajon and Alexis Manenti.

EXCLUSIVE: Emma Roberts (Madame Web) will exec produce and star in Space Cadet, a new rom-com from Stampede Ventures, which enters production this month. Also now aboard the film from writer-director Liz W. Garcia (The Lifeguard) is Prime Video, which will distribute it internationally.

Netflix‘s Resident Evil TV adaptation – has shared a video responding to the show’s axing, after it was announced earlier this month it had been cancelled after one season.Loosely based on the horror video game series of the same name, the series’ first season premiered in July and starred Reddick along with Ella Balinska, Paola Núñez, Adeline Rudolph, Tamara Smart and Siena Agudong.The show fared poorly among viewers, with a 26 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and garnering an average user rating of 3.6 per cent on IMDb. Last Friday, Deadline reported that Netflix has decided not to order a second season of the show.In a video posted to Twitter on August 28, Reddick thanked those who were a part of the series while acknowledging its end.