Baywatch Reboot Leads MIPCOM Cannes Buzz Titles
A rebuilt Baywatch, a Silicon Valley legal fight and a murder in Benidorm are among 21 shows being pitched as the ones to watch at MIPCOM Cannes.
The list comes from Variety, published 9 October. MIPCOM, the annual market where broadcasters and streamers buy programmes, runs 12-15 October at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, according to MIPCOM.
The Baywatch reboot is one of the most complete packages. It is set for a January debut on Fox in the United States and Sky in the United Kingdom. Twelve episodes are planned.
Variety reports the reboot stars Stephen Amell, Jessica Belkin and Shay Mitchell, with Matt Nix as showrunner, the person who leads a series creatively. Fremantle is the distributor, the company that sells the show abroad, and has already closed a presale, meaning rights sold before broadcast, to Prime Video for Canada, Latin America, India and much of Europe.
Cupertino is a legal drama set in Silicon Valley. Variety describes it as a David versus Goliath story starring Mike Colter and Rachel Keller, with Robert King and Michelle King as showrunners. Paramount Global Content Distribution sells it internationally. Method Man guest stars as a rapper suing an AI music studio.
Benidorm Is Murder was commissioned, meaning ordered, by Channel 5 in the UK. It stars John Hannah as a grumpy ex-cop running a Scottish pub in Benidorm. It is written by Ian Jarvis and directed by Simon Delaney, produced by Blackbox Multimedia and Clapperboard Studios, with ZDF Studios handling international sales.
Blindspot Berlin follows a rookie cop played by Bayan Layla and a police investigator played by Albrecht Schuch in the lead-up to the 19 December 2016 truck attack on the Berlin Christmas market. It is co-created, co-written and directed by David Nawrath and produced by Neuesuper with ARD Degeto, RBB, NDR and HR. Beta Film is the international distributor. Variety notes it was one of Europe’s two series in the Primetime strand at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Blood & Sweat is a serial killer mystery set in Tokyo and northern Finland. It stars Anne Watanabe and Jasper Pääkkönen. It was commissioned by Wowow in Japan and Nelonen in Finland and is written by Riku Suokas, Daniel Toivonen, Marie Iwasaki and Heikki Silja. Producers are AX-ON, Nippon TV, ICS Nordic and Boat Rocker Studios, which also distributes the series.
The Castle, or El Castillo, is created by Isabel Peña and Eduardo Villanueva. It is based on the nonfiction book El proxeneta (The Pimp) by Mabel Lozano and is set in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Movistar Plus Intl sells it internationally.
For viewers, this means decisions made in Cannes decide where these stories land. A presale or a distributor deal fixes which broadcaster or streamer can show a series in each country, and when.
