Deals round up: Emmys, ‘Staged’ & ‘Professionals’ head to Asia; Channel 4 plans car crash; ‘Ida Takes Charge’ at Viaplay

Staged

Emmys, ‘Staged’ & ‘Professionals’ head to Asia

Broadcasters and platforms across Asia have picked up a trio of scripted, factual and event programming, following deals with UK distributor Rainmaker Content.

Catchplay+ for Indonesia and Taiwan, U-Next Co., Ltd in Japan and Mediacorp in Singapore have all acquired The Emmy Awards 2021, while Rainmaker has also secured sales for UK comedy Staged to Star Channel Japan, and renewals on the series with Huanxi Media Group for China.

Action-adventure series Professionals has meanwhile been acquired by Disney Networks Group Asia Pacific Ltd.

Karen Wise, head of sales at Rainmaker Content, commented: “Asia is an extremely competitive marketplace and we are very pleased to have secured these sales to a number of  broadcasters and platforms across the region.

“Rainmaker has set out to build a portfolio of drama and factual series that has global appeal and these sales confirm the benefit of our strategy.”

Channel 4 plans car crash

UK broadcaster Channel 4 has ordered Pile-Up (working title), a new feature length documentary recreating a motorway pile-up, to examine what happens to the multiple vehicles and their occupants second-by-second.

Produced by Blink Films, the film seeks to discover how occupants should react to stay safe, and why some people are able to walk away unscathed while others lose their lives.

The series is being distributed by PBS International.

Dan Chambers, executive producer and creative director at Blink Films, said: “Pile-Up will be the largest road traffic experiment ever staged anywhere in the world. Not only will it be an incredible television event, more importantly it provides a once-in-a-lifetime chance to unravel the science of deadly motorway crashes.”

Ida Takes Charge

‘Ida Takes Charge’ at Viaplay

NENT Group has ordered Ida Takes Charge, a “darkly humorous” Norwegian drama series based on Kjersti Halvorsen’s novel, as its next Viaplay original.

The eight-part series is produced by Anagram Norge and filming took place in Oslo this summer, with Rikke Gregersen attached to direct. It stars Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne as a psychology student with an obsessive fear of terrorism, and will debut exclusively on NENT Group’s Viaplay streaming service. 

Filippa Wallestam, NENT Group CCO, commented: “Investing in the next generation of streaming storytellers is a priority in all our markets. The young talents behind Ida Takes Charge are some of the brightest in Norway’s thriving creative scene, with a very impressive list of awards and credits. As viewers across more European markets, and soon the US, are discovering, Viaplay is redrawing the map when it comes to unique Nordic stories.”