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Colin Callender’s Playground will adapt Georges Simenon’s best-selling detective novels “Maigret” into a television series set to air in the U.S. on PBS under the “Masterpiece” banner.

The adaptation of the streetwise Parisian Chief Inspector Jules Maigret has started production in Budapest. Callender and David Stern will executive produce for Playground.

Benjamin Wainwright will play Maigret and Stefanie Martini stars as Madame Louise Maigret.

“George Simenon’s creation of Jules Maigret holds a firm place in the pantheon of great literary detectives and we are incredibly grateful to our partners ‘Masterpiece,’ Banijay, Ilp and John Simenon for their trust and support as we endeavor to bring a contemporary Maigret to a new, worldwide audience,” Stern said. “Patrick Harbinson’s brilliantly fresh take on this iconic IP is reflective of Playground’s ambition to expand our growing slate of contemporary returning dramas that speak to a global marketplace.

Sony’s reboot of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” has found its principal cast.

Camila Mendes, Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers and Jonah Haur-King are in talks to join the cast of the 1997 horror flick’s redux.

The original film followed four young friends bound by a tragic accident who are reunited when they find themselves being stalked by a hook-wielding maniac. The film became a cult classic, earned over $125 million worldwide and led to the sequel “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.” Original stars Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt are in talks to return.

Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (“Do Revenge”) is directing the film, which is written by Sam Lansky and Kaytin Robinson off a draft by Leah McKendrick. Neal Moritz is producing.

Sony Pictures will release the film in theaters on July 18, 2025.

“Riverdale” alum Mendes most recently starred in romantic comedies “Upgraded” and “Música.

42, the L.A.- and London-based management and production company behind titles including “The Silent Twins,” “The Girl Before” and “The Flatshare,” has appointed former Universal International Studios exec David O’Donoghue to the position of chief operating office with immediate effect.

O’Donoghue will run the company’s operations and business development globally, in addition to having oversight of business affairs and production across the portfolio. He’ll work from 42’s London office.

O’Donoghue was most recently the London-based head of studio for Universal International Studios, where he was responsible for the division’s business operations and instrumental in its growth strategy, bolstering the studio’s premium producing roster and expanding its co-production business into European markets. He stepped down from the position in early 2023. Prior to this, he was COO and Joint MD of Carnival Films as it grew to become one of the UK’s leading scripted specialists,...

Exclusive: Paramount+ has yanked a raft of international originals from its service along with several big-ticket acquired series.

Numerous English-language originals disappeared overnight last week, as the U.S. conglom’s strategy shift towards more Hollywood-style content and lower costs played out in real time. Other series that had been tipped for second seasons will not return.

Subscribers were left perplexed as shows vanished, and voiced bewilderment and frustration on X and elsewhere online. The removed shows have been taken off the streaming service in all territories.

Samantha Morton-starrer The Burning Girls and One Night, the Australia-set drama with Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker, have disappeared from the streamer. Likewise, Eleventh Hour Films-produced The Killing Kind, based on the book of the same name, and thriller The Serial Killer’s Wife, have been pulled.

The Doll Factory, the adaptation of the bestselling novel from Marcella producer Buccaneer, has also come down.

Paramount+ Greenlights ‘The Road Trip’ Based On ‘The Flatshare’ Scribe’s Novel

Paramount+ has greenlit another UK series from 42 and Ptis based on a novel by The Flatshare scribe Beth O’Leary. The Road Trip is being helmed by Everything I Know About Love lead Emma Appleton, who plays Addie, heading out on a road trip to a friend’s wedding in Spain when she and her sister are forced to share the ride with her ex Dylan, his irrepressible best friend Marcus, and complete stranger Rodney. With nowhere to hide but a creaky campervan, the group must confront their buried history as secrets and revelations cause many a bump in the road. Starring alongside Appleton are Laurie Davidson (Mary & George, Guilty Party), David Jonsson, Isabella Laughland and Angus Imrie (The Crown, Fleabag). “42 and Paramount+ were the dream team behind The Flatshare series, so...

Miriam Margolyes, who played Professor Sprout in the “Harry Potter” film franchise, is lending her voice to a new kids project titled “Badjelly,” Variety can confirm.

Based on the Spike Milligan children’s book “Badjelly the Witch: A Fairy Story,” the animated series will bring to life Milligan’s original tale about two siblings who go searching for a lost cow – and stumble upon a cast of magical creatures.

Margolyes is set to play Badjelly in the project, who is described as “the wickedest witch in all the world.” When she bumps into brother and sister Tim and Rose on their adventures in the great black forest high jinks ensue. Tim will be voiced by Malachi Hall (“The Flatshare”) while Ava Diakhaby (“Shortland Street”) plays Rose.

The 13-part series is aimed at 7-11 year old and is set for delivery in 2025. The show is already in production.

“’Badjelly’ delivers a...

Exclusive: Small Axe star Shaniqua Okwok has criticized The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama for paying lip service to anti-discrimination pledges after the prestigious UK drama school failed to say whether it disciplined a teacher accused of a “racist incident.”

Okwok, one of Royal Central’s most successful recent graduates, made a formal complaint against a teacher after they allegedly demanded that she embrace her “inherited trauma” and play a slave during an acting exercise in 2015.

Deadline can reveal that the complaint was upheld last year and Royal Central apologized to Okwok, but for confidentiality reasons, she was not told if the lecturer faced any consequences. The individual remains in post as a lecturer at the school, which boasts alumni including Judi Dench and Kit Harrington. The teacher did not respond to a request for comment.

In an exclusive interview for Deadline’s Drama Schools Uncovered series, Okwok...

With its list of new releases for August 2023, Prime Video is relying on a heaping dose of fun library movies.

The first of the month brings a big influx of worthwhile flicks, including Galaxy Quest, Saw, F9: The Fast Saga, and Jurassic Park (the last two via Amazon’s Freevee free streaming option). Then some other recents hits arrive later on like the appropriately titled Cocaine Bear on Aug. 15 and the Chris Pine-starring Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves on Aug. 25.

August also sees the arrival of a major Amazon Original movie in the form of Red, White & Royal Blue. Based on a New York Times bestselling book, this LGBTQ romance follows a U.S. president’s son and a British prince. Over on the TV side of things, Prime Video subscribers can check out the Sigourney Weaver project The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart on Aug. 4 and Harlan Coben’s Shelter on Aug.

Exclusive: Steve Coogan is set to star in The Penguin Lessons, with The Full Monty’s Peter Cattaneo to direct the Jeff Pope-scripted adaptation of the Tom Michell nonfiction bestseller.

The management/production company 42 partners Rory Aitken and Ben Pugh will produce alongside Robert Walak. Rocket Science is handling international sales and will introduce the film at the European Film Market, with CAA Media Finance repping U.S. distribution rights.

The Penguin Lessons is the true story of a disillusioned Englishman who went to work in a school in Argentina in 1976. Expecting an easy ride, he discovered instead a complicated and divided nation – and a class of practically unteachable young boys. When he finds a small penguin washed up on an oil-slicked beach, his life is turned upside down – and the penguin becomes not only a valued friend, but also a teacher of life’s most important lessons, for Tom,...

Paramount+, the Paramount Global streaming service, has struck a distribution deal with mobile phone firm Three in the U.K. “Three U.K. becomes the streaming service’s first major mobile partner in the U.K. as Paramount+ continues to grow its direct-to-consumer distribution,” the company said.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Paramount+ is now available to new customers of Three who take out a qualifying monthly plan, making it the exclusive subscription video-on-demand partner for the mobile company. Three customers will get complementary access to the service for varying durations, depending on their tariff. At the end of their introductory offer, they can choose to use mobile billing to pay for the streamer at the then current price.

“As part of its ‘Mountain of Entertainment,’ Paramount+ offers some of the most highly anticipated originals, including the sci-fi hit Halo, Yellowstone, 1923, The Mayor of Kingstown, The Flatshare, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years and iCarly,...

Exclusive: The BBC has mined the 1960s and 1970s for its award-winning A Very English Scandal strand but, for the next one, viewers could be treated to a modern-day saga they are slightly more familiar with.

Deadline can reveal that a retelling of the Wagatha Christie drama is in early stage development as the potential third instalment of the hit series and Paramount+’s Flatshare scribe Rose Lewenstein is attached. The show once again comes from Sony-backed Blueprint Pictures and was initially rumored to be penned by Poldark writer Debbie Horsfield before Lewenstein came on board.

The as-yet-untitled latest in the Scandal series, which Deadline understands is one of a number of stories being considered and may not be greenlit at all, will cover one of the hottest British legal disputes of the past few years and comes fresh off the back of a Channel 4 factual drama titled...

At a time when it feels like we’ve seen every romcom premise under the sun, the concept of two total strangers sharing a bed every night might be the first truly original idea I’ve heard in years. No wonder Beth O’Leary’s debut novel The Flatshare has been glued to the hands of train passengers and beach loungers since it was released in 2019. And now, among a sea of romantic comedies determined to deconstruct the genre, the TV adaptation on Paramount+ is charming and tightly written – knowing, but never snarky.

We open to the sight of mascara-streaked, recently dumped Tiffany (Jessica Brown Findlay), slumped on the floor as Paloma Faith warbles about how “only love can hurt like this”. In order to take control (and save money amid the hellish London rental market) post break-up, Tiffany is going to sublet a one-bed flat in south London. But this...

Jessica Brown Findlay was a nightmare flatmate. At least, that’s what she remembers of her time as a student, just a few years before a role in Downton Abbey changed her life. Back then, there were no thoughts of having the perfect property, or making lifelong unbreakable bonds with the people you lived with – if it had a bed, it had a chance. “You had to make quite big compromises because there weren’t specific student digs in London,” she says. “You just had to find a group of people in a space with somewhere to sleep and make it work.” Still, the soon-to-be actor was adamant that she’d make the space she was paying extortionate rent for, her own – whether she had the go-ahead of her housemates or not. “I need to make myself at home within a day or two,” she continues. “I put everything up on walls,...

The contract says no crossover: he has it from 8am to 8pm and I have it 8pm to 8am.” In the first episode of The Flatshare on Paramount Plus, Tiffany (Jessica Brown Findlay) explains the intricacies of her unorthodox new living arrangement to her friend Maia (Shaniqua Okwok) over brunch. This kind of exchange is typical of a series – adapted from Beth O’Leary’s 2019 novel – that zeroes in on the day-to-day travails of renting in London.

The arrangement, though, is more of a bedshare than a flatshare: Tiffany’s nocturnal flatmate Leon (Anthony Welsh) will catch up on sleep in the one-bed apartment while she is out at work during the day. At weekends, though, Tiffany will have the place to herself, “so it’s actually a pretty good deal”. Maia’s face says otherwise – but anyone who has experienced the rental market in recent years has probably engaged in...

Paramount+ has unveiled the cast of its new original series “The Doll Factory” from “Marcella” producers Buccaneer Media.

An adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name by Elizabeth Macneal, “The Doll Factory” is set in London in 1850 and tells the story of Iris, who paints dolls for a living alongside her twin sister, Rose, and those in their orbit, such as taxidermist Silas, who dreams of finding an item so unique he will be catapulted to fame, and painter Louis, who is searching for his next muse.

When Iris meets Silas, and then Louis, she is offered an opportunity to escape and start a new life. To do so, she must abandon her sister, sacrifice her reputation and launch herself into the unknown. But as Iris’ world expands, a story of dark obsession begins to unfold.

Leading the cast is Esmé Creed-Miles (“Hanna”) as Iris, Éanna Hardwicke (“Normal People”) as Silas,...

Click here to read the full article.

BAFTA Award-winning director Sam Miller (Surface, I May Destroy You, Luther) is set to direct and executive produce the upcoming U.K. drama series A Gentleman in Moscow for Paramount+ and Showtime.

The limited-run series, which will star Ewan McGregor, as unveiled this summer, will debut exclusively on Paramount+ internationally in 2023 and on Showtime in the U.S. Due to commence production early next year, the adaptation of Amor Towles’ best-selling novel of the same name is produced by eOne in association with Paramount.

McGregor (Star Wars franchise, Trainspotting) is leading the cast as Count Alexander Rostov “who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past places him on the wrong side of history,” according to a plot summary. “Spared immediate execution, he is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol, threatened...

From The Flatshare to The Good Fight, Paramount Plus is offering a brilliant range of TV shows to compete with Netflix, iPlayer, Amazon Prime Video and the rest.

While it only launched in the UK on 22 June, the streaming service originated in the US in 2014, under the name CBS All Access.

Initially, it provided subscribers with live-streaming of CBS programming and on-demand access to its shows. Two years later, it began its expansion into offering spin-off CBS series, including Big Brother, The Good Fight and Star Trek: Discovery.

It officially relaunched under the name Paramount Plus in 2021 to offer a broader selection of originals, such as The Flatshare and iCarly, and a range of documentary films, comedies, dramas and rom-coms.

Below, you’ll find everything you need to know about Paramount Plus, from how to get it and how much it costs to a mini-guide of the best shows it has to offer.

Exclusive: His Dark Materials and Industry producer Bad Wolf has optioned the dramatic rights to The No-Show from British writer Beth O’Leary, who also penned the original source material for Paramount+’s Flatshare.

Deadline understands Bad Wolf is in talks with an international network over greenlighting the adaptation, which is being exec produced by O’Leary.

The bestselling author’s fourth novel, which was published in April, follows three women – Siobhan, Jane and Miranda – who seemingly have nothing in common but find that they’re involved with the same man, with each of them being stood up on Valentine’s Day by the elusive Joseph Carter.

The in-demand O’Leary’s Flatshare is being adapted for Paramount+ by On the Edge writer Rose Lewenstein, produced by The Girl Before production and management firm 42.

Bad Wolf Co-Founder Jane Tranter called The No-Show a “story that warms and breaks the heart in equal measure.

Jessica Brown Findlay (“Brave New World”) and Anthony Welsh “Master of None”) are set to star in a new U.K. drama series from Paramount Plus titled “Flatshare.”

The six-episode series has already started shooting in Bristol, U.K. Production will also take place in London and Brighton.

“Flatshare” tells the story of two twentysomethings trying to get by – by sharing not only an apartment but a bed. Brown Findlay will play Tiffany, a minimum wage worker employed by a clickbait news site will Welsh will play Leon, who works night shifts in a hospice.

To save money, they capitalize on their opposing timetables and time-share their apartment and their bed, with Tiffany sleeping through the night, while Leon is working, and Leon catching up on his sleep during the day, when Tiffany is at her desk in the office. They communicate entirely by Post-It note.

Despite never meeting, however...