Jessica Chastain has launched production company, Freckle Films and signed a first look overhead deal with Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray’s transatlantic financing-production shingle, Maven Pictures. The duo have already optioned The Magician’s Lie book by Greer Macallister and Camille Pagan’s novel, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences. Chastain will serve as President of Freckle Films with development exec Elise Siegel. Under the pact, Maven will provide development funds and cover overhead costs to acquire IP for Freckle and Maven to jointly produce. Jacqui Lewis, Leili Gerami, Clemens Pongratz and Elise Siegel will exec produce these films.
eOne and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment have entered into a long-term, multi-territory pact to include the UK and Benelux in addition to their longstanding distribution alliance in Australia and Spain. The companies are also creating a new home entertainment joint venture in Canada to oversee their joint direct account home entertainment business. Fox will handle sales and distribution services on DVD and Blu-ray on behalf of eOne for film, television and family home entertainment titles in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Australia. Fox will also handle exclusive U.S. marketing and sales efforts on physical home entertainment for the pre-school brand, Peppa Pig.
As reported in Exec Shuffle, Canal Plus is in discussions with Qatari-owned beIN Sports over an exclusive distribution agreement. If approved by anti-trust authorities in France, the deal would give Canal Plus execs a revenue boost while also giving beIN Sports better carriage in France.
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has been quoted with saying he’s been “approached by several potential strategic investors in Paramount” and is “pursuing a transaction with a strategic minority investor.” At the Jefferies Media & Communications Conference in New York, he said he’s engaged in “substantive discussions with a select group of strategic partners” and has signed up Paul Taubman’s PJT Partners as a financial adviser to help with the sale with a deal that could be struck as early as June. Cash would be used to reduce debt and pursue “operational and strategic opportunities that we might have and, of course, return of capital to our shareholders.” Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has sparked rumors that they could be the minority buyer. They recently acquired Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion and are planning to announce another “major deal” on Friday.
PBS is started a free 24/7 multiplatform children’s programming service this fall through PBS stations. The service will include an expanded PBS Kids TV channel and livestream on digital platforms through OTT partners and PBSKIDS.org. The service eventually will assimilate interactive games and activities. The new channel will meaningfully expand access to PBS Kids educational programming, making it available more hours, including during primetime and weekends when some families tune in together.
During Univision’s quarterly earnings call, CFO Francisco Lopez-Balboa characterized reports that the company wants to buy out Disney’s 50 percent share of English-language joint news operation Fusion, saying, “We are happy with the joint venture.” CEO Randy Falco was quoted with saying the acquisition would “help us expand our reach and achieve scale with multicultural millennial audiences.”
Per Exec Shuffle, HBO has signed a major content deal with Hulu Japan which will now have exclusive and wide-ranging access to HBO series, comprising hundreds of hours of programming. Hulu Japan, owned by HJ Holdings, is separate from the U.S.-based Hulu, which is owned by Disney, 21st Century Fox, and NBCUniversal.
Creator and executive producer of CBS’ Madam Secretary, Barbara Hall has inked a new two-year overall deal with the studio behind her series, CBS Television Studios. She will continue as executive producer/showrunner on Madam Secretary while developing new projects. Previously she created two other drama series for CBS: Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia.