News

Exclusive: British producer Honeybird Studios has unveiled a roster of creative partners it plans to work with to retain IP.

Those working with the Newcastle-based producer comprises UK’s Strongest Man maker FilmNova, Ninja Warrior line producer Ats, London’s Gramafilm, Andrew Cole Bulgin’s Tinkled Pink, former eOne UK casting exec Claudia Gueretta and Toronto formats producer Ready Everybody.

The plan is to develop and produce unscripted formats that will be co-owned between Honeybird and the respective partner, with their separate strengths combining to make stronger creative propositions and cross-genre collabs. Unscripted producers around the world have been seeking creative solutions to myriad funding issues, as networks in most countries hold back on spend and squeeze the middle of the market.

Former Whizz Kid Entertainment Managing Director Lisa Chapman launched Honeybird in 2023 and became its CEO, teaming with Managing Directors Derek Drennan and Stew Batt to create a production...

Patti Stanger has signed with Independent Artist Group (Iag) for representation, Variety has learned exclusively. She continues to be managed by Rob Lee of Mainstay Entertainment and is also repped by Darin Frank of Sloane Offer.

Stanger was the star and executive producer of the hit Bravo series “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” which aired on the cabler for eight seasons between 2008 and 2015. Stanger is a third generation matchmaker and has authored multiple books such as ““Become Your Own Matchmaker,” “Raise Your Desirability Factor,” “Find Your Match” and “Seal the Deal.” She has also been a featured columnist for People and Star.

She has made appearances on shows like “Dr. Phil,” “The Real,” “The View,” “The Doctor Oz Show,” “Steve Harvey,” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” She has even branched out into television acting with roles on “Drop Dead Diva” and “Days of Our Lives.”

Stanger is also active as a producer.

“The Kissing Booth” producer Andrew Cole-Bulgin has boarded Holocaust feature “Land Mine,” which he is developing with writer and director Darren Statman.

The project, which will also include an accompanying novel, has already been made into a short film of the same name under Cole-Bulgin’s banner Tickled Pink, a new gen-ip development company.

“Land Mine” is set in Poland in the late summer of 1945. Based on historical records and witness testimonies, it tells the story of a young Jewish man, Samuel, who emerges from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as his family’s sole survivor. Returning to his family’s Polish farm, 22-year-old Samuel finds it has been occupied by a local laborer called Piotr who is using it to run a moonshine business.

“Samuel disrupting Piotr’s new-found equilibrium results in escalating violence and reignites past traumas and painful buried memories for both Samuel and his aggressor,” reads the logline.

Exclusive: The Queen’s Gambit co-creator Allan Scott has set his next project, the crossover drama from Millionaire Matchmaker star Patti Stanger and Kissing Booth producer Andrew Cole-Bulgin.

The as-yet-untitled scripted project, which isn’t attached to a network yet, will follow a young dating expert from a Jewish family of matchmakers navigating her way through 1970s New York City and New Jersey, as she seeks to turn her family trade into an empire.

Along with Sam Barlow project Minsky, the series represents one of the first major shows for Scott since he wrapped on Netflix smash The Queen’s Gambit, which he co-created with Scott Frank.

The Anya Taylor-Joy-starring hit took Scott and Frank 30 years to get commissioned but was one of the streamer’s most-watched of 2020, a successful gamble taken by Netflix’s UK-based scripted boss Anne Mensah.

Scott, who was BAFTA nominated for 1997’s Regeneration and is a former whisky executive,...

The Kissing Booth producer Andrew Cole-Bulgin has joined forces with The Millionaire Matchmaker star Patti Stanger on a new scripted drama series. After departing Komixx, the production company behind the Netflix teen-romance trilogy, Cole-Bulgin has aligned with Stanger on a new series about a young dating expert from a Jewish family of matchmakers. The story, which has a big autobiographical element for Stanger, follows the protagonist as she navigates 1970s New York City and New Jersey to turn her family trade into an empire. “Every dream has the ability to become a reality, it just needs someone to have that vision and belief of what it can become,” said Stanger, who is executive producer and star of Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker. “When I met Andrew, I knew he was that person. Like many others I loved Netflix’s Kissing Booth movies. Who doesn’t? But it was more than that:...

“The Kissing Booth” producer Andrew Cole-Bulgin has departed Komixx — the production company behind all three instalments of the hit Netflix movies — to join forces with “The Millionaire Matchmaker” star Patti Stanger on a new scripted project.

The crossover drama series, in which a young dating expert from a Jewish family of matchmakers navigates 1970s New York City and New Jersey to turn her family trade into an empire, has strong auto-biographical resonance for Stanger, who is executive producer and star of Bravo’s “Millionaire Matchmaker.”

“Every dream has the ability to become a reality, it just needs someone to have that vision and belief of what it can become. When I met Andrew I knew he was that person. Like many others I loved Netflix’s ‘Kissing Booth’ movies. Who doesn’t? But it was more than that: I was truly inspired by Andrew’s ability to understand universal experiences...

The Kissing Booth 2 released on Netflix recently, and quickly became the most-watched film on the streaming platform over the weekend, in addition to becoming one of Netflix's most-watched films of all time. A second sequel to the hit teen rom-com would be a no-brainer at this point. Joey King, who plays the lead role and also acts as executive producer, recently revealed that The Kissing Booth 3 has already been shot and is in post-production, to be released next year.

The first movie in the series, The Kissing Booth, told the story of Elle, played by Joey King, who has been best friends with Lee Flynn, played by Joel Courtney, her whole life, with part of the agreement in their relationship being a pact made never to date each other's relatives. Unfortunately, Elle has always nursed a crush on Lee's older brother Noah, played by Jacob Elordi. Over the course of a memorable summer,...

Exclusive: Netflix on board for a third installment of The Kissing Booth, the continuing romantic adventures of Elle (Joey King), her hunky hot tempered boyfriend Noah (Jacob Elordi) and her best friend Lee (Joel Courtney). Vince Marcello, who adapted and directed the first two films from the novels that Beth Reekles originally self-published through Wattpad, has already finished shooting the third installment, and is in post-production on it.

King, the star and exec producer, just revealed the news during a livestream fan event. The film was quietly shot in tandem with The Kissing Booth 2 in South Africa, and it will be released in 2021. The third installment picks up where the second one left off. It’s the summer before Elle heads to college, and she has a secret decision to make. She has been accepted into Harvard, where boyfriend Noah is matriculating, and also Berkeley, where her Bff Lee (Noah’s brother) is headed.

Exclusive: Legends of Tomorrow actress Maisie Richardson-Sellers and newcomer Taylor Perez are joining Joey King Joel Courtney, Jacob Elordi, Meganne Young, Carson White, and Molly Ringwald for Netflix’s The Kissing Booth 2. Vince Marcello is directing the follow-up which is based on smash Ya book by Beth Reekles, who wrote the book at age 15 and self-published it on Wattpad before being snatched up by Random House.

Marcello and Jay Arnold co-wrote the script. King stars as Elle Evans, who just had the most romantic summer of her life with her reformed bad-boy boyfriend Noah Flynn (Elordi). But now Noah is off to Harvard, and Elle heads back to high school for her senior year. She’ll have to juggle a long-distance relationship, getting into her dream college with her best friend Lee (Courtney), and the complications brought on by a close friendship with a handsome, charismatic new classmate named Marco...

Netflix is giving fans of “The Kissing Booth” a very sweet Valentine’s Day present: news of a sequel.

Yes, the “The Kissing Booth 2” is currently in production, with stars Joey King, Joel Courtney and Jacob Elordi all set to return for the follow-up to the streamer’s 2018 rom-com, Netflix announced on Thursday.

Debuting last May, “The Kissing Booth” is based on the Beth Reekles self-published coming-of-age novel that tells the story of a high school girl who is forced to confront her secret crush at a kissing booth.

Also Read: Netflix's 'The Kissing Booth' and 'To All the Boys I Loved Before' Rewatched by Nearly Half of Viewers

“The Kissing Booth 2” will be directed by Vince Marcello with a screenplay by Marcello and Jay Arnold. Producers include Marcello, Michele Weisler, Andrew Cole-Bulgin, Edward Glauser. The film hails from Komixx Entertainment Inc.

The sequel is currently in production...

Pucker up. “The Kissing Booth 2” is happening on Netflix, one of its stars, Joel Courtney, said on Twitter on Thursday. The sequel will reunite many of the team that made the original breakout hit, including Joey King and Jacob Elordi.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! It’s official!,” Courtney told his Twitter followers. “Yup!!! We Are Getting A Sequel!!!,” said his co-star Joey King.

The Ya-skewed movie went big on Netflix with the streamer’s content chief, Ted Sarandos, saying that at one point it was “one of the most-watched movies in the country, and maybe in the world.”

Plot details for “The Kissing Booth 2” are thin on the ground. Indie producer Komixx, which has carved out a niche in the sought-after Ya space, will make the new film.

The first movie was adapted from a Beth Reekles novel, which was originally self-published on the Wattpad digital platform. It was directed by Vince Marcello,...

When Ted Sarandos said over the summer that Netflix’s young adult film “The Kissing Booth” was “one of the most-watched movies in the country, and maybe the world,” ears pricked up across the industry. The comment from the Netflix content chief underlined that the Ya audience, far from being lost to TV, is tuning in. But the rules of engagement are different.

“The critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave us 13, but the audience [rating] was at 82 at one point,” says Andrew Cole-Bulgin, chief creative officer of the “The Kissing Booth” producer Komixx Entertainment. “There’s disconnect because most of the critics are in their 40s and it’s not aimed at them.”

Komixx has mined digital self-publishing platform Wattpad for IP in this space. In the wake of “The Kissing Booth,” the shingle is now packaging Kelly Anne Blount’s thriller, “Captured,” and Ali Novak’s “My Life With the Waterboys,...

Sony is moving into the young adult content arena, pacting with Ya specialist Komixx Entertainment on a slate of projects.

Sony Pictures Television has kids channels as well as wide selection of TV series, but this is its first foray into the Ya category. Komixx has experience in Ya, including producing a feature adaptation of Welsh teen author Beth Reekles’ “The Kissing Booth” for Netflix.

The first projects out of the Sony-Komixx deal will be “Captured,” Kelly Anne Blount’s thriller, which has proved hugely popular on the Wattpad platform, and teen spy novel series “Cherub.”

“Captured” is being worked up as a 20×10-minutes digital series and “Cherub” as a 10x45mins TV series. Another show in development is “My Life With the Walter Boys,” based on the novel from Ali Novak, which has registered 66 million reads on self-publishing digital platform Wattpad.

Independent content company Komixx has bases in London,...

Sony Pictures Television is getting into business with Komixx Entertainment, the company behind forthcoming Netflix Ya drama The Kissing Booth. The Hollywood studio has struck a multi-project deal to co-develop and co-produce projects based on IP for young-adult audiences.

The deal marks Sony’s first foray into Ya content and the two companies have already started working on their first two projects. They are developing a ten-part TV series based on Cherub an action adventure series based on the books by Robert Muchamore, a ten-part series based on Ali Novak’s My Life With the Walter Boys, which is described as One Tree Hill-meets-Parenthood, and a digital series based on Kelly Anne Blount’s kidnap story Captured.

The two companies will now start talks with international broadcasters and streaming services on these series with more planned over the coming months.

Wayne Garvie, President, International Production, Spt, said, “There...

Film adaptation of Beth Reekles’ teen novel has been developed by Random House Children’s Screen Entertainment.

Vince Marcello has signed on to script the film adaptation of The Kissing Booth.

The adaptation of Beth Reekles’ teen novel has been developed by Random House Children’s Screen Entertainment (Rhcse), the jointly owned company of Random House and Komixx Entertainment Ltd.

Andrew Cole-Bulgin, joint president and head of film and TV of Komixx Entertainment, commented: “We knew from our first meeting that Vince had the vision and energy to create a screenplay that would have huge appeal to the Teen audience.”

“As I read Beth’s novel, I began to envision a new and exciting way to re-tell this classic story. Every generation has a film like this – Grease, Sixteen Candles, Clueless and I believe The Kissing Booth can be this generation’s version of these classic movies,” added Marcello.

The Kissing Booth centres on Rochelle Evans, who’s...