Fremantle Sells Key Territories on Luca Guadagnino’s ‘We Are Who We Are’ – Global Bulletin
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Fremantle sells Luca Guadagnino series; Wattpad, NL Film team for Muslim young adult romance; and All3Media sells AIDS crisis drama.
Fremantle has closed a raft of global deals on “Call Me By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino‘s television debut “We Are Who We Are.”
The eight-part series has travelled to 133 territories worldwide, including M-Net (South Africa), HBO Europe (Nordic, Spain, Portugal and CEE), HBO Latin America (Latin America and Caribbean), Starzplay (Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg and Netherlands), Vodafone (Greece), more.tv (Russia), GO Plc (Malta), BluTV (Turkey), SBS (Australia), Bell Media’s Super Écran and Crave (French Canada) and Watcha (South Korea). Fremantle has also sold the series to BBC Three (U.K.), where it will launch Nov. 22.
A HBO-Sky series, produced by Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment and Mario Gianani for Wildside, both Fremantle companies, with Small Forward, “We Are Who We Are” follows two American teenagers who live on a U.S. military base in Italy.
The cast includes Chloë Sevigny, Jack Dylan Grazer, Alice Braga, and Jordan Kristine Seamón.
The series launched on HBO in the U.S. in September 2020 to critical acclaim.
DEVELOPMENT
Wattpad, the global multi-platform entertainment company for original stories, and Banijay‘s Dutch production outfit NL Film, have teamed for “36 Questions (and Lots of Coffee),” a film project the companies will develop based on Samya Hafsaoui’s Muslim romance story of the same name.
The story has had more than 6,000 reads on Wattpad. In 2020, Wattpad users around the world spent more than 78 million minutes reading stories tagged #MuslimLoveStory and associated tags. #MuslimLoveStory also saw a 113% increase in reading time from 2019-2020.
The development deal follows the 2019 announcement of Dutch-language partnership to develop Dutch-language young adult stories from Wattpad by NL Film.
Hafsaoui will co-write the adaptation, along with an as-yet-undetermined co-writer. NL Film’s Kaja Wolffers, Sabine Brian and Ronald Versteeg will produce alongside Wattpad’s Aron Levitz, Muriel Rosilio, and Carla Zeller.
SALES
Distributor All3media International has sold five-part drama series “It’s a Sin” to HBO Max in the U.S., HBO Europe for Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe, Portugal and Spain, and HBO Latin America for Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela. Amazon Prime Video has acquired the series for Canada, while Stan has acquired for Australia, TVNZ for New Zealand, Canal Plus for France, NPO for the Netherlands, RTBF for French-speaking Belgium, Amedia for Russia and CIS, and Watcha for Korea.
The series will bow in the U.K. on Channel 4. Produced by Studiocanal’s Red Production Company, the show is written by Russell T. Davies (“A Very English Scandal”), and explores friendship and love during the 1980s AIDS crisis.
The cast includes emerging actors Olly Alexander, Omari Douglas, Callum Scott Howells, Lydia West (“Years and Years”) and Nathaniel Curtis, and veterans Keeley Hawes (“Bodyguard”), Shaun Dooley (“Gentleman Jack”), Neil Patrick Harris (“How I Met Your Mother”), Stephen Fry (“Wilde”) and Tracy Ann Oberman (“Friday Night Dinner”).
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