Deal Round-up: Taboo attracts global networks

A number of broadcasters have acquired rights to Tom Hardy drama Taboo from US-based independent prodco Sonar Entertainment.

Viasat’s TV1000 from the Russian/CIS territory bought rights to the eight part historical drama. It was also picked up by HBO in Spain, the Nordics and eastern Europe, Fox Networks Group Latin America, AMC in Portugal, Digiturk in Turkey, and Cosmote in Greece.

Taboo (pictured) is set in 1814, and follows hardened traveller (Tom Hardy) who tries to reinvent himself by leaving Africa and returning to London, but faces a battle for his father’s legacy, which is steeped in conspiracy, betrayal and murder.

The 8x60mins series is a co-production between Hardy Son & Baker and Scott Free Productions. The drama began airing this month on BBC One in the UK and FX in the US.

Elsewhere, France’s public television network has commissioned Paris-based indie prodco Pernel Media to make a prime-time blue-chip documentary miniseries.

France 5 has commissioned Extreme Earth, a 2×60 series which studies the extreme climates and geology of Iceland and Chile, showing how man has adapted to the landscape. Pernel boss Samuel Kissous is executive producer, while Patricia Corphie commissioned the series for France 5.

Pernel Media holds the distribution rights for the series outside of France.

Meanwhile, with NATPE Miami well underway, London-based FremantleMedia International has secured a raft of scripted and non-scripted content sales. Its Latin American sales include three international dramas from scripted prodcos Kudos, UFA Fiction and Wildside.

Fox’s pan-Latin American network has picked up Kudos’ Apple Tree Yard. The 4x60mins miniseries features Emily Watson as a respected female scientist put on trial for murder.

American broadcaster DirecTV has bought the rights to UFA Fiction’s Deutschland ’86 and The Mafia Only Kills in Summer for its US Hispanic networks

Deutschland ’86 focuses on East German intelligence agent Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) during the Cold War in the midst of terror in Western Europe, following on from Deutschland ’83, which was international critical and ratings success.

Wildside’s The Mafia Only Kills in Summer is set in the late 1970s Palermo, and tells the story of an Italian family surrounded by growing mafia violence.

On the non-scripted side, Fremantle shopped 8x60mins documentary series The Cars That Made Us to Discovery Networks Latin America, and Sony Pictures Television Networks took the most recent 23x60mins season of America’s Got Talent. Turner purchased the rights to Bondi Ink.

Finally, Keshet International got in on the NAPTE action, licensing a new social experiment format to TV network Globo Brazil.

Boxed sees two disputing family members enter a specially designed box to sort out their problems with the help of a trained mediator. The participants are unable to leave the box until their issues are resolved.

The twelve-episode series is produced by Globo and will launch in 2017.