Development Slate Lingo Pictures

ITV Studios-owned Australian prodco Lingo Pictures plans to expand its international footprint by protecting antipodean IP from big-spending US studios.

By Neil Batey

while and then say to the author, ‘Hey, come to us, we’ll make it happen.’”

Lingo’s first two dramas delivered since joining ITVS are 8x30’ anthology series Erotic Stories, for SBS in Australia, and six-parter After the Party, for New Zealand’s TVNZ and ABC in Oz.

With ITVS now handling international distribution and injecting cash into the company, Lingo says it is able to “turbocharge” its production output.

“Coming into the ITV Studios family allows Lingo Pictures to flex its muscles and continue making high-end Australian drama that will sell well internationally,” says Stephens.

Lingo currently has two shows in pre-production, an equal number in post-production and one shooting. Although coy about revealing too many details at this stage, one confirmed project is 8x60’ drama Prosper

“It’s a rather large show for us, which starts shooting very soon, and we see it as being a returnable series,” says Stephens. “It’s a dynasty story set in Sydney about a family who run a successful mega-church.”

Also on the slate for 2023 is Queen of Oz, a 6x30’ comedy coproduction with ABC and the BBC. Former Doctor Who actress Catherine

Tate executive produces and stars as Princess Georgiana, a disgraced member of a fictional British royal family who is sent to live in Australia to keep her out of harm’s way.

Meanwhile, ABC has commissioned Lingo’s The Messenger, an eight-part drama adapted from Markus Zusak’s novel of the same name. It tells the story of a teenager who stops an armed robbery and becomes an accidental hero but begins to receive mysterious playing cards the following day, taking him on an unexpected journey.

With the second season of Aussie dramedy Upright, starring Tim Minchin and Milly Alcock, returning to European giant Sky and Fox Showcase down under recently, Lingo’s content is in high demand, both at home and away.

“Being part of ITVS will simplify our business a whole lot,” says Bowden. “It gives us more time to work on making the shows rather than signing up with individual distributors for each project. We’ll get rapid intel on what the market is doing and advice on how we can tweak content for it to perform better internationally.

“We can now turbocharge the company to make the best of the opportunities that are out there for Lingo.”

Range Media Partners International, the London-based production arm of US talent management firm Range Media Partners, is one of the more compelling entities to launch in the UK market over the past two years.

Led by co-presidents Thomas Daley and Oliver Riddle, the company has been staffing up and building a curated development slate over the past 18 months, with several projects announced recently and more on the way.

At a time when TV projects increasingly need toptier talent attached to grab commissioners’ attention, and with the cross-pollination between the European and US content markets only growing, Range Media Partners International has the enviable benefit of being directly connected to some of Hollywood’s biggest power brokers.

“We are an independent studio with development funds, the ability to sell anywhere and a real superpower, which is connections to the managers in LA,” says Riddle, who joined in October 2021 from Netflix, where he oversaw strategy and operations for the streamer’s international film team.

Its California-based parent company sent shockwaves through Hollywood in September 2020 when former CAA agent and Entertainment One chief strategy officer Peter Micelli and more than a dozen high-profile agents from the likes of CAA, WME and UTA told their employers they were resigning in order to form the new talent management outfit.

Around a year later, the London production arm was up and running, and while its impact has not been quite as dramatic, its progress has nonetheless turned heads following the recent announcement of several in-development projects.

Among them, Range Media Partners International, along with UK actor and producer Taron Egerton (Rocketman, Kingsman landed the film rights to LGBTQ+ psychological thriller HappyHead from UK author Josh Silver.

On the TV side, it partnered with A+E Networks, which owns a minority stake in Range Media Partners, to secure the rights to Swedish crime novel Blaze Me a Sun and follow-up Under the Storm from Christoffer Carlsson.

Daley, who joined in late 2022 after a two-year stint as senior VP and head of creative at Universal International Studios in London, and Riddle have been busy meeting with streamers and public broadcasters as they build out their slate of UKand European-focused content.