MIPCOM: Upcoming Series From Natasha Lyonne, Emily Blunt, Tim Roth and Rian Johnson Heat Up the Annual TV Market

After two years of COVID-enforced virtual events, leading international television confab MIPCOM is looking to reestablish its claim to the title as “the mother of all entertainment content markets” with its 2022 event, running Oct. 17-20 in Cannes. Organizer RX France is expecting more than 10,000 attendees from some 96 countries and a who’s who of small-screen power players, including all the studios (Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, Paramount, MGM and Fox Entertainment) plus Netflix, indie production giants Fremantle, Banijay, ITV Studios, BBC Studios, Red Arrow and All3Media, and such national champions as France’s StudioCanal and Gaumont, Italy’s Rai Com, Scandinavian platform Viaplay and Japan’s Fuji Television. All will be looking to feed an ever-growing global appetite for content. Among the hundreds of new shows and formats debuting at MIPCOM this year, The Hollywood Reporter has picked a dozen scripted dramas — from a Euro environmental thriller to a Japanese drama set in a winery — that could be this season’s hottest sellers.

Black Ops 

BUZZ Combining the British comedy with the London cop show — both genres that are solid international sellers — this high-concept comedy thriller follows two East London police community support officers who get in way over their heads when they try to go undercover in their local crime gang.

TALENT Black Ops is co-created and co-written by BAFTA winners Gbemisola Ikumelo
(A League of Their Own) and Hammed Animashaun (Black Mirror), who also star; The Queen’s Gambit actor Akemnji Ndifornyen plays notorious gang leader Tevin. 

SALES BBC Studios 

Dark Hearts 

BUZZ Action sells and this six-part series from Mandarin Télévision looks to provide plenty on that front, with a story following the leader of an elite French commando unit on a mission to save the daughter of a high-ranking Iraqi jihadi in exchange for crucial info that could help allied forces retake Mosul and prevent terrorist attacks on French soil. France Television and Amazon Prime Video France are the local commissioners. 

TALENT Ziad Doueiri, acclaimed director of The Attack and The Insult, helms from scripts by The Bureau veterans Corinne Garfin and Duong Dang-Tha. 

SALES Neuen Connect

Dreaming Whilst Black 

BUZZ Global streamers and local pay-TV outlets are in the market for cutting-edge comedy, and this six-part series, adapted from a hit webseries about a young filmmaker struggling against racial prejudice to make it in the industry, has the makings of a cult hit. 

TALENT Rising Brit multi-talent Adjani Salmon, who co-wrote (with Ali Hughes) and stars in the adaptation, already picked up an emerging talent BAFTA award for the series’ pilot.  

SALES A24 

Drops of God

BUZZ The Bear meets The Amazing Race in a Japanese winery. This eight-part live-action drama, adapted from the hit manga, follows a competition set out by famed enologist Yutaka Kanzaki, who, before his death, leaves behind 12 envelopes for his biological son Shizuku Kanzaki and his adopted son Issei Tomine. Each envelope contains a description of a different wine. The two sons must search across the globe for each wine, with the winner of the quest becoming the sole heir of the family winery.

TALENT Tomohisa Yamashita (The Man From Toronto) and Fleur Geffrier (Das Boot) star, with False Flag and Absentia helmer Oded Ruskin behind the camera, directing from a script by Marianne writer Quoc Dang Tran. 

SALES Legendary Television

Elpis 

BUZZ This Japanese dramedy thriller is looking to find the sweet spot between two of the most evergreen TV genres: true crime and procedural. Inspired by real-life cases involving false multiple convictions, the series follows an investigative team at a low-rated magazine show that uncovers a statewide conspiracy.

TALENT Drive My Car breakout Tôko Miura stars alongside Masami Nagasawa, Gordon Maeda and Ryohei Suzuki.

SALES Kansai TV 

The English 

BUZZ Drama Republic, U.K. production shingle of France’s Mediawan, reteams with its The Honourable Woman writer-director Hugo Blick to target high-end international broadcasters with a period drama about an aristocratic Englishwoman who travels to 19th century America to seek revenge on the man she holds responsible for her son’s death.

TALENT An all-star Brit cast includes Emily Blunt, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds, Stephen Rae and Rafe Spall.

INTERNATIONAL SALES All3Media International 

U.S. RELEASE Nov. 11 on Amazon Prime

Infiniti

BUZZ Sci-fi remains one of the strongest genres on the international market, and this six-part crime thriller is keen to lock in with global streamers and a domestic broadcaster. Its murder-mystery plot, set between the International Space Station and the rocket launch site in Kazakhstan, involves a decapitated American astronaut, a dogged Kazakh cop and some major space-time continuum shifts.

TALENT The series’ international cast features Lex Shrapnel, Céline Sallette, Daniyar Alshinov and Vlad Ivanov.

SALES StudioCanal 

Last King of the Cross

Buzz Narcos proved there is a global appetite for drugs-and-money tales set outside the US and this six-part Australian rags-to-riches true story, following two Lebanese-born brothers drawn into the coke-fueled underworld of the 1980s Sydney club scene, could be the just the hit niche networks streaming platforms are jonesing for. Paramount+ is releasing in Australia. 

Talent Tim Roth is the A-list name in the mostly-Aussie cast that includes Lincoln Younes (Grand Hotel), Claude Jabbour (Stateless) Callan Mulvey (Outlaw King) and Tess Haubrich (Alien: Covenant). 

Sales Cineflix Rights

The Night Logan Woke Up 

BUZZ Niche streamers and networks, particularly public broadcasters, will want to take a look at this series, the first TV adaptation from Canadian cinema auteur Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother). Adapted from the play by Michel Marc Bouchard, the five-part psychological horror-thriller follows Mimi, her brother Jules and their best friend, Logan, who are torn apart by a traumatic event in their 1990s childhood and reconnect 30 years later. 

TALENT Dolan will write, direct and star, alongside the original cast of Bouchard’s play, including Julie LeBreton, Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, Éric Bruneau, Patrick Hivon and Julianne Côté.

SALES StudioCanal 

Poker Face 

BUZZ Case-of-the-week procedurals are a mainstay of free-to-air broadcasters worldwide, and this mystery comedy-drama, the TV debut of Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, has the makings of a primetime hit. 

TALENT Russian Doll star Natasha Lyonne exec produces and leads an A-list cast that also features Adrien Brody, Chloë Sevigny and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

INTERNATIONAL SALES Paramount Global Content Distribution 

U.S. RELEASE Bowing on Peacock in 2023 

The Rookie: Feds 

BUZZ Dependable mainstream crime dramas are anchor programming across the world and cablers and local networks will be eying this spin-off of the hit ABC series The Rookie — which recently got re-upped for a 5th season. This new one-hour drama applies the original’s “oldest rookie” premise to the FBI, with a 50-something guidance councilor giving up her job to become a special agent taking on unique cases. 

TALENT Reno 911! alum  Niecy Nash-Betts stars, alongside Felix Solis, Frankie Faison, Britt Robertson, Kevin Zegers and James Lesure 

SALES eOne

US RELEASE September 27 on ABC

The Swarm

BUZZ This eight-part environmental thriller from Game of Thrones showrunner Frank Doelger, based on Frank Schätzing’s best-seller, looks like one of the biggest European projects of the season. Germany’s ZDF, France Télévisions and Rai in Italy are already on board as co-producers, alongside Hulu Japan and Scandinavia’s Nordic Entertainment Group. The big push at MIPCOM will be for a U.S. broadcaster or global streaming partner. 

TALENT Luke Watson (Britannia), Barbara Eder (Barbarians) and Philipp Stölzl (North Face) lead a diverse cast of young up-and-comers and onscreen veterans, including Jack Greenlees, Cécile de France, Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Barbara Sukowa. 

SALES Beta Film/ZDF Studios

This story first appeared in the Oct. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.