AMC’s Acorn TV orders Cannes drama from Patrick Nebout’s Dramacorp

Cannes (CC Spike)

AMC Networks’ streamer Acorn TV has ordered a romantic drama set in the French city of Cannes, with the show believed to be the first procedural to be produced and set on the Cote d’Azur since the 1970’s.

Cannes Confidential will be produced by Patrick Nebout’s Beta Film-backed, Stockholm-based prodco Dramacorp, with the story centring on the relationship between an idealistic, local underdog female cop and an ex-conman and master of counterfeit, who’s on the run from both the police and the mob.

The pair are forced into an unlikely — and surprisingly successful — crime-fighting partnership, which sees them solve a murder case in each close-ended episode. However, the drama’s long arc focuses on the main character’s quest to find the criminals who framed her father, a local-hero police officer who was jailed for a murder he didn’t commit.

The eight-parter, which follows Acorn TV’s commission earlier this week for the second season of Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, will go into production in early 2021 and film across the city. The series will exclusively premiere on Acorn TV in North America, New Zealand, Australia, and United Kingdom in late next year.

Chris Murray (Agatha Raisin) is co-creator and lead writer, and will work with co-writer Maria Ward on the show. Its commissioning comes three month after Acorn TV, which has been expanding around the world over recent months, launched in the UK.

The series is believed to be the first English-language procedural drama to be produced and set on the Cote d’Azur since action-adventure comedy The Persuaders, starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. The new show will have exclusive access to film across the City of Cannes, which enables the series to use the trademark-protected name ‘Cannes’ in the show title.

Catherine Mackin, MD at Acorn TV’s commissioning and co-producing development division Acorn Media Enterprises, said the show’s “engaging, blue sky script and beautiful setting” would make it “the kind of programme the world could use right now.”