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Banijay Rights, the global distribution arm of Banijay Entertainment, has closed a significant scripted package deal with Spain’s Movistar Plus+, the country’s leading pay TV and SVOD service.

The agreement, encompassing over 60 hours of drama content, includes several of Banijay Rights banner titles at the London TV Screenings this year. Among them are the BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning “Wolf Hall,” Steven Knight’s “This Town,” the upcoming “The Hardacres,” historical drama “Marie Antoinette,” BAFTA award-winning “The Sixth Commandment” and the coming-of-age series “My Mad Fat Diary.”

Upscale mass audience entertainment, the dramas carefully observed social context makes them a good fit for Movistar Plus+, whose auteur-driven original series enrolling often some of the best movie directors in Spain, aim to be part of Spain’s cultural conversation.

Marion Vergnaud, senior VP Iberia, Italy and Malta, Banijay Rights, who brokered the deal, said: “From the inner workings of the...

Day two of the MIPCOM international television market brought a slew of new deals and a major corporate acquisition.

French group Newen Studios, owned by commercial channel TF1, announced it had secured a majority stake in Marie Guillaumond’s French production company Felicita Films. The boutique group has some 10 projects in development for local French channels and streaming platforms, and is currently in postproduction on A la Hauteur, a feature film directed by Delphine and Muriel Coulin starring Vincent Lindon.

On the sales side, the BBC pre-bought season two of period drama Marie Antoinette from Banijay Rights. The Canal+ drama, created by Deborah Davis, stars Emilia Schüle (Ku’damm 56/ 63) as the avant-garde French queen and Louis Cunningham (Bridgerton) as the King Louis XVI. The first season of Marie Antoinette sold to more than 147 territories, including to PBS Distribution in the U.S.

“Following the great success of series one, we...

Award

Paramount+ and Tving‘s Korean series “Bargain” has won the critics’ choice award at the Seriencamp Festival in Cologne. In April, “Bargain” became the first-ever Korean series to win best screenplay at the Canneseries Festival in France.

The series stars actors Jun Jong-seo (“Money Heist: Korea”) and Jin Seon-kyu (“Extreme Job”) and is an adaptation of director Lee Chung-hyun’s 2015 short film of the same name. Director Jun Woo-sung, who was part of the production team of the short, picked up the story and developed it into a six-part series. “Bargain” revolves around a group of strangers who gather at a remote motel with ulterior motives – seeking to bargain. Unlike the original film, the series follows the characters after an unexpected earthquake traps them inside the building. With no one to trust, they must find a way to survive.

“Bargain” is developed by Paramount+ and Tving, out of Paramount...

Bridgerton’s imperious Queen Charlotte gets her origin story in Netflix’s prequel series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. The six-episode drama follows a young Charlotte (India Amarteifio), a German noblewoman who is married off to King George III (Corey Mylchreest). Her arrival in the U.K. sparks the “Great Experiment” – the racial integration of the country’s aristocracy. As characters such as a young Lady Danbury (Arsema Thomas) navigate a new social reality, Charlotte must adjust to life in a strange country while also dealing with her husband’s secret illness.

Queen Charlotte will surely help sate Bridgerton fanatics as they wait for the show’s third season. In the meantime, if you’re craving more royal romance, here are five shows to binge after you’ve watched the Bridgerton prequel.

‘The Great’

A young German woman finds herself at sea in a strange foreign court and married to...

“Marie Antoinette” is the BBC, Canal+ produced historical drama TV series, created by Deborah Davis and directed by Pete Travis, Geoffrey Enthoven, starring Emilia Schüle, Louis Cunningham, Jack Archer, Jasmine Blackborow, Gaia Weiss, James Purefoy, Marthe Keller, Roxane Duran, Nathan Willcocks, Crystal Shepherd-Cross, Caroline Piette, Oscar Lesage, Liah O'Prey, Yoli Fuller, and Martijn Lakemeier, airing in North America on PBS:

“…based on the life of the last queen of France before the ‘French Revolution’, who was 14 years old when she became ‘Dauphine of France’…

“…upon her marriage to the heir apparent, ‘Louis-Auguste’…”

Season Two is currently in production.

Click the images to enlarge…...

Marie Antoinette’s reign at PBS begins on March 19. The public broadcaster’s new series about the infamous French queen stars Emilia Schüle as the young Austrian archduchess who is married off to Louis, the dauphin of France (Louis Cunningham). It’s just the latest on-screen depiction of the legendary royal. Here are five movies about Marie Antoinette to watch before you binge the new show.

Kirsten Dunst starred in Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’

At 15 she became a bride. At 19 she became a queen. By 20 she was a legend.

Sofia Coppola's punk-rock period drama "Marie Antoinette" was released 15 years ago today on October 20, 2006. pic.twitter.com/EkeLeSQ8N1

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) October 20, 2021

Kirsten Dunst played a young Marie Antoinette in Sofia Coppola’s lavish, occasionally anachronistic 2006 period drama Maria Antoinette. It covers some of the same territory as the new PBS series, including the young queen’s awkward early years at Versailles.

Forget “will they or won’t they?” In the PBS import Marie Antoinette, a tongue-in-rouged-cheek take on a period biography, the question is when will the diffident young Dauphin, later King Louis XVI, take his teenage Austrian bride, Marie Antoinette, to bed? Their relationship is shown to be shrug at first sight, but the gossipy 18th-century French court hangs on these political pawns’ every move. After all, as Marie’s mother the Empress Maria Theresa (Marthe Keller) impresses upon her before sending her away, “Your job is to deliver the heir.” Yeah, but first things first. For much of the stylized first season, written by The Favourite’s Deborah Davis and ending well before the fateful Reign of Terror, Louis (gawky Louis Cunningham) flees at the very sight of Marie (a splendidly saucy Emilia Schüle) in a sexual panic. She’s frustrated by his rejection, but he’s just sad and pitiful,...

French pay TV group Canal+ has ordered a second season of its dazzling historical drama “Marie Antoinette.” BAFTA-nominated Ed Bazalgette will direct the first four episodes.

While Deborah Davis (“The Favourite”) still on board as creator, season 2’s writing team is led by Louise Ironside, joined by Charlotte Wolf, Francesca Forristal and Andrew Bambfield.

The series, which is being backed by Banijay and Newen, is expected to start filming in the fall. The new season will continue telling the epic story of the avant-garde young queen, played by Emilia Schüle (“Ku’damm 56/ 63”), with Louis Cunningham (“Bridgerton”) as the king of France, Louis XVI.

Commissioned by Canal+’s Creation Originale unit, the upcoming season will portray how the royal couple at their height of their power faced an unprecedented financial crisis. The incessant attacks of Provence and Chartres against the royal couple stirred up the hatred of the nobles while disastrous consequences.

Banijay Rights has closed further sales of “Marie Antoinette,” a dazzling costume drama created and written by Deborah Davis (“The Favorite”).

“Marie Antoinette” tells the story of the avant-garde young queen, played by Emilia Schüle. An Austrian noble, Marie Antoinette was married off to Louis-Auguste, the future king of France, while she was still a girl.

Produced by Banijay Studios France, Capa Drama and Les Gens, the series was picked up by Antenna Plus (Ant1+) in Greece, Ceska Televize in the Czech Republic, Directv in Latin America and Canada’s national public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada for CBC Gem (English)and Ici Télé and Ici Tou.tv (French).

The richly drawn series has also been acquired by RTÉ in Ireland, Sky Italia, Radio & Television Slovakia – Rtvs and Viaplay across all Nordic and Baltic countries and the Netherlands, among others.

Davis penned “Marie Antoinette” with Louise Ironside (“The Split”), Avril E. Russell (“All...

PBS will bring back six series and premiere two period dramas in 2023, which includes the debut of Tom Jones on Masterpiece that’s based on the 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling.

“PBS continues to bring dramas that appeal to the entire family, from mysteries like Miss Scarlet and the Duke on Masterpiece and Vienna Blood to coming-of-age stories like Sanditon on Masterpiece and La Otra Mirada. This season’s lineup of period dramas is our most extensive to date, with hours of captivating storytelling from January to May,” says Maria Bruno Ruiz, Vice President Program Scheduling at PBS. “Not only do we have returning seasons of our most anticipated dramas, but we also have two new premieres that audiences are sure to fall in love with: Tom Jones on Masterpiece and Marie Antoinette. Both bring incredible new talent to PBS. I can’t wait for audiences to watch!

On the outskirts of Paris, in a vast, industrial-looking studio in Bry-sur-Marne, the clocks have turned back to the 1770s. Opulent decor — gilded furniture, flower-adorned curtains and marble everywhere — fills the soundstage.

The atmosphere is studious on the set of “Marie-Antoinette,” a lavish French-produced costume drama created, co-written and executive produced by Deborah Davis. She’s delivering a feminist take on an infamous historical figure, best-known for apocryphally advising the starving masses to eat cake. We all know how that ended.

On screen, Marie-Antoinette hasn’t been treated better than she was at the guillotine, where she’s often depicted as a villain or a frivolous airhead.

“I found the fighter, and I loved being with her all the way through her battles,” says Davis, the Oscar-nominated writer of “The Favourite,” which focused on another queen, England’s Anne.

Emilia Schüle, a rising Russian-born German actor, plays Marie-Antoinette, an Austrian...