Month: February 2021

EXCLUSIVE: Hitman: Agent 47 and The First actress Hannah Ware is to headline Netflix’s soulmate science fiction series The One, which the U.S. streamer plans to premiere on March 12.

Ware plays Rebecca, the ambitious and impulsive founding CEO of MatchDNA, a tech company that has designed a DNA test that allows people to identify their perfect partner. She most recently starred in Beau Willamon’s Hulu series The First, while other credits include ABC’s Betrayal and Starz’s Boss.

The One was first announced by Netflix in 2018 and is based on a novel by John Marrs. The series is created and written by Misfits creator Howard Overman, whose production company, Urban Myth Films, is producing in association with Studio Canal.

Other cast includes Riviera actor Dimitri Leonidas, who plays Rebecca’s best friend and the co-founder of MatchDNA, and Industry star Amir El-Masry will play a friend to Rebecca, who harbors deeper feelings for the tech CEO.

Stephen Campbell Moore, Wilf Scolding, Diarmaid Murtagh, Lois Chimimba, Eric Kofi-Abrefa, Pallavi Sharda, Zoe Tapper, and Gregg Chillin have also been cast in the eight-part drama, which has echoes of AMC’s hit anthology series Soulmates.

The One is executive produced by Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy for Urban Myth. The company is currently making Season 2 of Fox/Canal+ series The War Of The Worlds, which was the first UK high-end TV drama to begin production in the pandemic era. It was also recently greenlit by Sky to make thriller Extinction.

Ware is repped by Liebman Entertainment, CAA, Schreck Rose Dapello, and Wolf Kasteler.

A television broadcasting war has broken out between the UK and China. Just days after the UK revoked the broadcasting license of Chinese state-backed network CGTN, Beijing has today retaliated by banning BBC World News.

According to CGTN, China’s National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News “seriously violated regulations” after it “went against the requirements that news reporting must be true and impartial, and undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.”

Reuters journalists in China reported that the BBC World News channel has already gone dark in the country following the ruling. The English-language news service is restricted to broadcasting in international hotels in China and is not available in homes.

Chinese authorities have taken issue with the BBC’s reporting on the plight of Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. State-backed Global Times said the broadcaster was responsible for a “slew of falsified reporting” on Xinjiang and China’s handling of Covid-19.

A BBC spokeswoman said: “We are disappointed that the Chinese authorities have decided to take this course of action. The BBC is the world’s most trusted international news broadcaster and reports on stories from around the world fairly, impartially and without fear or favour.”

The action follows UK media regulator Ofcom effectively banning CGTN. Under UK broadcasting laws, organizations that hold broadcasting licenses may be state-funded, but must not be controlled by political bodies.

Following a months-long investigation, Ofcom concluded that license holder Star China Media Limited did not have control over China Global Television Network’s editorial output. Ofcom gave CGTN time to transfer its license to China Global Television Network Corporation, but the regulator was not satisfied that this new entity would be free from political meddling, not least because it is controlled by CCTV.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is doubling down on its investment in the GameStop story with a new documentary series from Emmy and Oscar-winning filmmakers Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus.

The streamer has ordered and is in production on a series that tells the viral story of rebel retail traders taking on Wall Street – a David vs. Goliath tale for the ages.

The series will be produced by Story Syndicate, the company set up by Icarus producer Cogan and What Happened, Miss Simone? filmmaker Garbus. The pair will exec produce along with Jon Bardin, who is working on Nat Geo’s upcoming Fauci documentary and Julie Gaither, who worked on Netflix’s The Innocence Files.

The untitled doc series will look at the layers on intrigue within the story, from the supercharged power of digital communities to the gamification of trading and explore the latest seismic shift in how the world’s money behaves.

It will feature exclusive access to key members of r/wallstreetbets who fueled the short burn movement, along with everyday people who hitched their wagon to the GameStop train and luminaries of the financial world.

It comes after Deadline revealed that the streamer is making a scripted feature film based on the story with The Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal in negotiations to write and Noah Centineo, who starred in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, attached to star.

It is also the latest GameStop project to emerge; MGM is adapting Ben Mezrich’s The Antisocial Network, Jamie Rogozinski, the founder of Reddit’s WallStreetBets, has sold his life story to RatPac Entertainment, XTR, the company behind You Cannot Kill David Arquette, has teamed up with directors Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci on a doc project and Console Wars director Jonah Tulis has started production on another feature documentary with Submarine.