Fifth Season, the growing film and TV studio behind the hit show “Severance,” has fully acquired The Story Collective, the U.K. banner that launched in 2021 with its backing and has since produced series include “A Thousand Blows” on Disney+.
As part of the deal, Damian Keogh will remain as CEO of The Story Collective, but also joins Fifth Season as SVP, managing director, international scripted, and will work in a strategic capacity across a range of international projects across its television studio and distribution divisions.
Fellow co-founder Simon Vaughan, however, will exit to start a new production company called Storyworks, which launches with a first look deal in place with Fifth Season. Storyworks with work alongside The Story Collective on certain pre-existing projects.
Meanwhile, Ben Irving will continue to lead Fifth Season’s own development and production slate in the U.K. as SVP, creative director, international scripted and will work closely with Keogh on building the studio’s U.K. and International production activities. A consolidated senior leadership team — including The Story Collective’s Elouise West and Natasha Neill and Fifth Season’s Charlotte Bloxham — will now collaborate across both slates, leading on business affairs, finance and production respectively from Fifth Season’s London office. Damian Keogh and Ben Irving both report to Fifth Season CEO Graham Taylor.
“We set the company up to partner with great creative talent and producers wholeheartedly and with a patient, nurturing, and supportive ethos,” said Keough. “We really believe in the team sport of it all and are proud of the roster of people and projects we have assembled in our Collective. Fifth Season has always recognised and encouraged our approach, and it’s a natural and exciting next step to be joining forces, and I am looking forward to working more closely with Graham, Ben, and other Fifth Season colleagues.”
Added Vaughan: “It is exciting to see The Story Collective being consolidated within Fifth Season to help deliver the scaled enterprise we all set out to build together when we formed the company four years ago. And also exciting for my new venture to be partnering with Fifth Season from the off — the projects on our combined slates going forward are truly extraordinary and I sense that the best is yet to come.”
Originally launched in mid 2021 by former Lookout Point execs Keogh and Vaughan, alongside ex content chief of BBC Worldwide Helen Jackson and Jonathan Norman, with Fifth Season’s support, The Story Collective has been behind projects including “A Thousand Blows,” created by Oscar nominee Steven Knight and starring three-time Emmy winner Stephen Graham, for Disney+/Hulu. The company boasts a number of creative partnerships, including Tom Davis’s and James de Frond’s Mighty Pebble Pictures, and Ben Donald’s Cosmopolitan Pictures.
“The Story Collective was built by Damian, Simon, and Helen on an ethos of creative collaboration, which we backed and have admired from its inception – and it feels like a natural evolution to be consolidating in this way four years later, as we double down on our ambitions as a UK studio,” said Graham. “Fifth Season’s offering now has even greater firepower, and an undeniable nexus of talent connections and projects to put our weight behind.”
The Story Collective’s projects — which will now sit under the Fifth Season’s U.K. studio arm — includes shows in development at Apple, BBC, Sky, Netflix, Channel 4, Britbox and Sky Showtime.
English (US) ·