Sundance SVOD service heads to Rillington Place, Riviera

AMC Networks has acquired Europe-produced scripted trio Back, Rillington Place and Riviera for its Sundance-branded US subscription VOD service.

Sundance Now has landed exclusive streaming rights to the shows, deals that come just months after it ordered its first original series, The Chances.

Back is the latest comedy from Peep Show stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb, following a man (Mitchell), whose plans to take on his family pub after his father’s death are undermined by the reappearance of his estranger foster brother (Webb).

Sundance Now has become a coproduction partner on the six-part Channel 4 comedy, which comes from That Mitchell & Webb Company in association with Big Talk Productions. BBC Worldwide is preselling the show ahead of its launch later this year.

Cable channel Sundance TV will air it next year after its SVOD launch.

Back is “the perfect entrée into comedy for Sundance Now, with its compelling yet relatable characters and hilarious storylines”, according to Sundance TV and Sundance Now general manager Jan Diedrichsen.

“We are sure that this laugh-out-loud, addictive comedy will have members binge-watching in one sitting,” he added.

Dark BBC drama Rillington Place comes through a deal with BBC Worldwide North America, while the Julia Stiles-starring Riviera is added via distributor Sky Vision.

The BBC Studios-produced Rillington Place debuts on Sundance Now on November 9. The three-part show follows the life of real life British serial killer John Christie, who murdered at least eight people at his Notting Hill home during the 1940s and 1950s.

Riviera is a ten-part series starring Stiles as an American art student who is forced to embrace the shade underworld of France’s Cote d’Azur after her billionaire husband is killed in a yacht explosion.

Archery Pictures and Primo Productions coproduced the series for Sky’s European pay TV services and Altice in France.

In related news, Sundance TV is coproducing an eight-part miniseries about the Canadian tainted blood scandal of the early 1980s with Canuck pubcaster CBC.

Robert C. Cooper (Stargate SG-1, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) is creator and showrunner of Unspeakable, and his Mezo Entertainment will produce.

It debuts on CBC and SundanceTV early next year, with Sundance stablemater AMC Studios taking international distribution rights.

The story follows the emergence of HIV and Hepatitis C in Canada and a tragedy that saw thousands of people unnecessarily infected in a major medical disaster.

Cooper himself contracted Hepatitis as a result of the scandal.