‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ Doc Greenlit By ITV; Salto To Shutter; Series Mania Jury; Sky Deutschland Dramas; James Franco Project; Viaplay Orders – Global Briefs

Max Goldbart and Jesse Whittock
·5 min read

‘Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway’ Gets Behind-The-Scenes Doc Treatment

ITV’s Saturday Night Takeaway is getting the behind-the-scenes doc treatment. In Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway: Behind the Screens (w/t), ITV Studios indie Lifted Entertainment and the host’s shingle Mitre Studios will take a fly-on-the-wall approach to the making of one of ITV’s biggest entertainment shows. Documentary makers will embed themselves within the production team for the upcoming 19th season, in a show that regularly dominates the ITV entertainment schedules. Ant & Dec are stalwart ITV hosts, who also helm I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and various one-off specials. The news comes with ITV entertainment set for a shake-up, with The Masked Dancer and Ninja Warrior being rested this year and The Masked Singer set for more mashup specials. “Saturday Night Takeaway is one of the biggest live entertainment shows on television and in this documentary special we’ll offer a glimpse into the inner workings of what goes on behind the scenes to bring viewers the happiest 90 minutes of the week,” said ITV Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, Lily Wilson.

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French Streamer Salto To Shutter

French streamer Salto is to officially be dissolved. The M6 and TF1-backed streamer launched more than two years ago and had around 1M subscribers, bringing together scripted, entertainment and news. However, the partners today appointed Maître Marc Sénéchal, a partner at BTSG, to liquidate. In a statement, they blamed “complex and constrained governance” and the refusal of operators to help distribute the platform in the same vein as American platforms. A timetable for closure will be issued soon. The news, which first emerged last month, comes a few months after M6 and TF1’s merger was shut down by the French regulator and the pair said this merger would have allowed Salto to continue running.

Channel 4 Drama Boss To Lead Series Mania Jury

Channel 4 Head of Drama Caroline Hollick will lead the Series Mania Co-Pro Pitching Sessions Jury, which has unveiled 15 of 16 projects. Hollick will be joined by RAI Commissioning Editor Michele Zatta, Studiocanal Executive Managing Director TV Series Françoise Guyonnet, Finland’s YLE Head of Drama Jarmo Lampela and CBS Studios International, VP Development & Co-Productions Lindsey Martin, who is based in the UK. The quartet will select a winner who will be awarded €50,000 ($53,200) from projects including France’s Asma, Spain’s Executioners and Italy’s Fort Apache. A 16th project will be announced next week and presented out of competition in partnership with the Berlinale Co-Production Market. Series Mania Co-Pro received 450 project submissions from 66 different countries. Thrillers and detective stories dominated along with historical dramas and those with a strong appeal to the 90s, according to Laurence Herszberg, Founder and General Director of Series Mania. “We could not be prouder of the fact that this year we received a record number of submissions with increasing interest from African countries including Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria,” said Herszberg. Series Mania takes place from March 17 to 24.

Sky Deutschland Unveils Chef & Hospital Dramas

Sky Deutschland has commissioned a series about a bipolar star chef who must return home and a darkly comic hospital drama. Unveiled at a Berlinale event this morning, Sky Studios is behind Garten Eden with Hager Moss Film and KraNK Berlin with Violet Pictures and Real Film Berlin. In the former, Jakob Eden, a celebrity chef with a penchant for light drugs and bipolar disorder, returns to help save his father’s restaurant from the brink of ruin. In KraNK Berlin, one of the toughest and most overcrowded German hospitals is reformed by young Munich doctor Zanna, whose measures meet with resistance from hospital staff. “These two new series symbolize our ambition to expand the range and breadth of our German-originated slate, bringing customers something they’ve never seen before on Sky,” said Tobias Rosen, who was recently appointed Vice President of Sky Studios Deutschland. Sky is also giving its high-end Juan Carlos I doc a first-look at Berlinale.

James Franco-starring ‘The Price Of Money – A Largo Winch Adventure’ Begins Shooting

Principal photography has begun in the Bulgarian snow on James Franco-starring feature The Price of Money – a Largo Winch Adventure, which is from Pan Cinéma and Versus production, in association with Wild Bunch International. Directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse and produced by Nathalie Gastaldo Godeau and Jacques-Henri Bronckart, it stars Tomer Sisley (Don’t Look Up, Largo Winch 1 & 2) in title role of Largo, with Franco (Spring Breakers, 127 Hours), Clotilde Hesme (Lupin) and newcomer Élise Tilloloy (Roaring 20’s) also cast. The production will next move to Thailand, then Belgium, where it will end on June 29. The storyline’s adapted from the eponymous Belgian comic books by Jean Van Hamme and Philippe Francq.

Viaplay Orders Polish Comedy-Drama Series ‘Stroke’

Streamer Viaplay’s push into European originals has continued this week with new orders in Poland and the Netherlands. This morning, Viaplay has announced eight-part Polish dramatic comedy Stroke, starring Jacek Poniedziałek (A Heart of Love, The Reverse) as a Warsaw bon vivant and popular TV host whose life is suddenly turned upside down. It comes from playwright and screenwriter Paweł Demirski (Artysci) and will premiere exclusively on Viaplay in 2023. Viaplay’s first Polish original was true-crime drama Murderesses. Yesterday, Viaplay unveiled its first Dutch film, a comedy set around a Christmas dinner where nothing goes as planned. Jacqueline Blom (Black Widow), René van Zinnicq Bergman (Smeris) and Georgina Verbaan (Klem) are among the leads. Directed by Michael Middelkoop (Snor) as his debut feature and produced by HALAL, shooting is underway in Amsterdam on the currently unnamed film.

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