ITV STUDIOS & TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION ANNOUNCE FIRST COMMISSION FROM INNOVATIVE CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP
One-Hour Mini Series "The Oaks" To Begin Filming and the Golden Globe Award-Winning Comedy "Dharma & Greg" In Development. ITV STUDIOS (UK) and Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution have announced the first major commission to come out of their groundbreaking creative collaboration.
ITV1, the UK's leading commercial broadcaster, has commissioned ITV STUDIOS to produce The Oaks, a 5 x 1 hour mini series for ITV1 to be filmed this summer and delivered by the end of the year. The Oaks, an original teleplay produced in the US as a pilot for Fox in 2007 is the story of three families living in the same house in the sixties, eighties and current era, linked by the spirit of a young girl - the dead daughter of the first family to live there.
This significant commission will have ITV STUDIOS' Creative Director of Drama - London, Kate Bartlett and Senior EP ITV STUDIOS' Kate Lewis (check title) as Executive Producers and is written by Stephen Greenhorn (Glasgow Kiss, Dr Who, The Wide Sargasso Sea) who will also Exec Produce. The Producer is Chrissy Skinns (Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Auf Wiedersehen Pet). The drama has been commissioned by ITV's drama commissioning team Sally Haynes and Laura Mackie.
The partnership's second project is Dharma and Greg. Scripts are currently being written for the British version of Dharma and Greg, Fox Television's Golden Globe winning situation comedy. The highly acclaimed comedy writing duo of Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley (Black Books, Hyperdrive) are working with Saurabh Kakkar, Creative Director of Comedy ITV STUDIOS. The show will be launched to major UK broadcasters in the near future.
Lee Bartlett, Managing Director of ITV STUDIOS who brokered the original deal with Fox said, "I am thrilled that this partnership has got off to such a brilliant and successful start. These are the first fruits of what I hope will be a very productive and rewarding partnership and I look forward to building on this slate of titles and doing lots more with Fox in the future. It works tremendously well for all of us and is exactly the productive working relationship that I had hoped for."
Yoni Cohen, Fox's SVP European Sales commented, "This partnership is a success because of the unwavering commitment of ITV and Dana Walde
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