Wheelhouse And UK Theme Park Firm Merlin Entertainments Building Unscripted Slate Around London Eye And Other Iconic Attractions

Jesse Whittock
·2 min read

Wheelhouse is getting ready for a rollercoaster ride.

Brent Montgomery’s company has entered into a partnership with UK-based theme park and attractions firm Merlin Entertainments. This will see the pair working to develop a slate of original unscripted TV programs based around Merlin’s suite of attractions.

More from Deadline

Merlin owns 140+ attractions in 23 countries. Its most notable operations are theme parks such as Alton Towers and Thorpe Park, and its Gateway Attractions brand portfolio, which includes Sea Life, The London Dungeons, Legoland, Warwick Castle, Madame Tussauds and the Peppa Pig Theme Park.

These will be the basis for TV programs that will span several genres, including reality, documentary and game show.

Glenn Hugill, Wheelhouse’s Chief Content Officer and President of the company’s UK division, will oversee the Wheelhouse-Merlin slate.

Furthermore, the collaboration will integrate talent and digital strategies through Wheelhouse DNA, Wheelhouse’s creator-focused division, and talent-management arm Additive Creative. Strategic cross-promotion is expected to form another pillar of the partnership.

Montgomery, Wheelhouse CEO, said: “It’s a great privilege to develop a roster of new programming around Merlin’s world-famous and iconic attractions, and we’re eager to deploy Wheelhouse’s full arsenal of creative and business capabilities in this partnership. This is what we’ve built Wheelhouse to do, and with Merlin the possibilities are endless; we’re excited to get to work.”

Scott O’Neil, CEO of Merlin Entertainments added: “Through creative innovation and storytelling, our partnership with Wheelhouse will allow us to bring a new dimension to our stories, characters and IP on the largest platforms in the world: TV and entertainment programming. Wheelhouse understands and loves our brands as much as we do, and our partnership will help to create entertaining TV programmes that spotlight our diversity of experiences to iconic landmarks.”

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.