Welcome to your weekly Insider, friends. Jesse Whittock here, with news from the heart of Disney, the Golden Globes and the Red Sea. Off we go. Sign up here.
Disney Wished For Moore
Sliding doors moment: How’s this for an earth-shattering move… that ultimately didn’t happen? Yesterday, Max and Jake got the European TV community talking when they revealed that BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore had held talks with top brass at Disney over the vacant EMEA originals role, but decided against the move. This has all the ingredients for an agenda setter: a story rooted firmly in the industry that will have execs and creatives from the UK to Turkey debating what happened behind closed doors. You’ll remember we broke news of Liam Keelan’s impending departure in early October and the role has been the talk of the industry since. Other names linked include Netflix UK’s Anne Mensah and ITV drama boss Polly Hill, with the latter speculated by some sources as the likelier of the two. Both are coming off the back of strong years with hits including Baby Reindeer and Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Disney’s Jon Wax has also been in the conversation, while we know other very senior execs in the UK, where the role will be based, have expressed interest. It appears, given Moore’s history as a program maker, Disney is seeking a commissioning expert rather than an empire builder or manager, but with Keelan still in post until early next year, there are still more twists and turns to come.
“Prepared to take further action”: Elsewhere in the UK, new Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was taking a tough line with the TV industry, warning that she takes a “dim view” of major industry players who aren’t taking proactive steps to stop bad behavior and sweeping complaints under the carpet. Speaking in response to the Gregg Wallace allegations, which have continued to pile up, she urged the big guns including MasterChef producer Banijay to financially back CIISA, the soon-to-launch bullying reporting body. “CIISA thinks it is better if the industry grips this, but if they don’t, I will be prepared to take further action,” said Nandy… no nonsense. Despite CIISA being supported publicly by the likes of Keira Knightley, it still needs funding to launch its flagship anonymous reporting line. Nandy has been speaking with the BBC over presenter Wallace’s behavior on set, most of which is alleged to have happened on that network’s shows. Wallace’s lawyers deny he engaged in behavior of a “sexually harassing nature.”
Golden Globe Trotting
‘Emilia’ in paradise: It was Golden Globes nomination day on Monday, as those behind the biggest films and TV shows on the planet sat eagerly waiting to hear if their productions would move forwards to the live event on January 5. Netflix led the pack with a total of 36, ahead of The Brutalist studio A24 and HBO. Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language flick Emilia Pérez secured 10, including an historic Best Actress in a Motion Picture nom for Karla Sofía Gascón, who would become the first out trans performer to win a top acting category at the Globes. By Pete Hammond’s reckoning — and he’s usually right about these things — 10 is an all-time record for a film in the Musical or Comedy category. There’s been a bucketful of Emilia news over the past seven days, including more noms at the French Lumière Awards, and a spat between Selena Gomez and Eugenio Derbez, whose unpleasant comments about Gomez’s performance caught heat. Read all of that here.
Internationoms: Netflix’s 23 television nominations included three for British breakout series Baby Reindeer (perhaps the makers might have hoped for even more) and one for Squid Game Season 2, which doesn’t launch until December 26. Andreas and Pete H both noted how the Globes had provided a good year for the Cannes Film Festival, with the likes of Anora, All We Imagine As Light and Emilia Pérez pushing its films to 22 noms in total. The Globes take place on January 5 at the Dolby Theater in LA, and will broadcast on CBS. Click through for a ton of Globes coverage, and there’s more international awards coverage in Nancy’s useful rundown of which movies are likely to make the Best International Feature Film Oscar shortlist.
Stars Shine On Red Sea
Mapping out a ‘Red Path’: Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed its ambition to become a major sports and entertainment hub in the Middle East over the past 10 days, with a fourth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival that pulled in wave upon wave of Hollywood A-listers and industry heavyweights. A few numbers: 122 films premiered, more than 300 screenings, 30,000 tickets issued, 530 international delegates, representation from 85 countries, 142 souk exhibitors, 1,730 souk delegates and 7,000 overall accreditations were among the figures reeled off by the event’s parent body, the Red Sea Film Foundation. Tunisian director Lotfi Achour’s Red Path was the big winner at the awards ceremony on Thursday night. The main competition, judged by Jury President Spike Lee, Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky, UK actor Minnie Driver, Turkish actress Tûba Büyüküstün and U.S. actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim, was focused on films out of the Middle East and Africa for the first time this year.
A-list appearances: A major talking point was the raft of stars touching down at the event, running from December 5-13 in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. The opening ceremony set the tone with Lee, Hollywood royalty Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, Eva Longoria, Emily Blunt and Vin Diesel among those hitting the red carpet. The stream of A-list guests continued at the same pace with other guests including Brendan Fraser, Jeremy Renner, Michael Mann, Viola Davis, Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas, Sarah Jessica Parker and John Boyega to name but a few. Many passed through our Red Sea Studio for chats. The festival is tight-lipped on how they pull in the talent, but there was much debate in the backdrop on what kinds of fees the stars were commanding and whether it is money well spent, although there is no denying the role they play in putting the festival and Saudi Arabia on the map. In a perfect fusion of Saudi Arabia’s sports and entertainment ambitions, Lee, Douglas and Diesel were spotted at a match between local team Al Ittihad, captained by Karim Benzema, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Riyadh-based team Al Nassr, just days before FIFA announced it was awarding Saudi Arabia the 2034 World Cup. Ronaldo’s partner Georgina Rodriguez also hit the opening ceremony red carpet.
Amazon’s European Masterplan
Prime time: It’s been a helluva year for Prime Video outside the States. The cuts that swung across Amazon’s entertainment businesses early 2024 put a stop to expansion into the original content game in emerging regions such as Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, as we reported at the time. Part of the fallout of the layoffs and pullbacks was the formation of a new-look Prime Video Europe. Split into the established ‘EU5’ division and emerging ‘EUX’ unit, money was funnelled across from the MENA region and Africa and handed to Ritchie Ordonez, an exec you might have heard of until now — though you should do. She is running the Prime Video EUX business, and in particular looking to supercharge business in the Netherlands, Nordics, Poland and Turkey. A Polish showcase last week highlighted the direction of travel. I secured an exclusive first interview with Ordonez to get to know the Germany-based GM, who hails from the U.S. and says she never thought she would live in Europe, let alone run one of its biggest streamers. Get believing, Ritchie, you’re not in Kansas anymore!
El Disruptor
‘Solitude’ to gratitude: Diana’s latest International Disruptors item featured Alex García López, a director on Netflix’s big-scale adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s seminal novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, whose first episodes dropped yesterday. Easily Netflix Latin America’s biggest swing to date, the pressure was on. López tells Deadline he wasn’t even sure if he “had the strength” to do it after adapting cult Japanese anime series Cowboy Bebop as a live-action remake. Good thing he was up for it, as he now calls it “the most gratifying job” of his career. For the full story behind the production, click here, and find more from Netflix Lat Am content chief Francisco ‘Paco’ Ramos in Stewart’s interview from October by going here.
The Essentials
🌶️ Hot One: The Assembly, whose BBC special sent Michael Sheen viral, is switching to ITV for a full season in the UK, as Max revealed.
🌶️ Very Hot: Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke are set for Irish thriller No Ordinary Heist, per Diana’s scoop.
🔥 Burn, baby, burn: Crash co-writer Bobby Moresco will script and direct racing biopic Bugatti.
🍀 One more for luck:Hulu bought Channel 4’s acclaimed comedy Big Boys.
🖥️ Contenders… ready!: We launched our Contenders Film: International streaming site on Monday.
🪓 Breaking Baz: Our man had an exclusive one-on-one with Wicked star Cynthia Erivo.
👩 Exiting: Tesha Crawford from Universal International Television after nearly two years.
👞 Stepping down: Channel 4 Chairman Ian Cheshire will leave the broadcaster after his first term ends next year.
👋 Film here!: The Czech Republic wants more foreign productions after boosting its production incentive program.
✍️ Signed: Voy! Voy! Voy! director Omar Hilal by Dubai’s 75East.
🕯️ RIP: José de la Torre, star of Netflix Spain series Toy Boy, who died aged just 37.
🎞️ Trailer: For Son of a Critch Season 4.
This week’s International Insider was written by Jesse Whittock and edited by Max Goldbart. Melanie Goodfellow contributed.
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