Welcome back Studio Coffee Folks! We’ve got an ambitious, filmed-from-home-pilot to check out in The Agoraphobics Detective Society today, along with acquisitions for projects starring Rashida Jones and Nikolai Coster-Waldau.
ICYMI:
- Our Butt Boy review is live, if there’s a hole in your movie lineup for it.
The Agoraphobics Detective Society is the new mystery show filmed completely from home – and benefitting industry freelancers
Get ready for one of the world’s first filmed-from-home TV shows. Producer Maggie Monteith is bringing together an acting and production crew to develop The Agoraphobics Detective Society – a remotely filmed mystery show whose proceeds will benefit UK and US film and TV freelancers who’ve been affected by the tumultuous ramifications of COVID-19. Deadline is reporting that the episode will be available to watch later this month through Pinpoint Presents with a pay-what-you-can ask to help out the UK’s Film And TV Charity and the Motion Picture & TV Fund in the U.S.
The eight episode series stars Brian Cox, Claes Bang, Ian Harvie, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Grace Van Patten, Nicole Ansari-Cox, Simon Kunz and Josephine Butler. Writer-directors Dolly Wells, Suzi Ewing and Heidi Greensmith tell a story about a group of patients as they search for a missing psychiatrist. To create the pilot, Monteith says the crew is juggling shelter in place protocol, timezone differences and technology woes – not to mention props, makeup and wardrobe.
Rashida Jones and Robot Chicken team up for Quibi
Filthy Animals is Quibi’s next project. The animated sci-fi comedy stars and is executive produced by Parks and Rec’s Rashida Jones and also brings on the talent of Robot Chicken alums Nikolai and Simon Haas, Carey O’Donnell and Johnny Smith, who created the show.
Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (Robot Chicken) is producing its third project for Quibi with Filthy Animals, following Justin Roiland’s Gloop World and Micro Mayhem. The show follows Sunny Day (Jones), a 12 year-old who’s smarter than most kids her age, lonely and becomes friends with a rogueish cat named Cruz. Quibi also said recently that it would do its best to get on televisions as quickly as possible, given that its mobile only pitch was stunted by dormancy of recent days.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau-lead The Silencing is acquired by Saban Films
In spite of its SXSW premiere being cancelled, The Silencing is acquired by Saban Films in a recent deal. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau heads up the crime thriller with Annabelle Wallis and Hero Fiennes Tiffin in a story directed by Robin Pront and written by Micah Ranum. The Silencing follows a reformed hunter (Coster-Waldau) living in isolation on a wildlife sanctuary who becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he and the local sheriff set out to track a vicious killer who may have kidnapped his daughter years ago. As Amazon’s partnership with SXSW treads water, it’s unclear if The Silencing will debut there in lieu of its planned one.
Miss Juneteenth lands at Vertical Entertainment after SXSW success
Vertical Entertainment snaps up North American distribution rights to another movie this week with Miss Juneteenth. The movie premiered at Sundance film festival and, just a month ago, won SXSW’s Lone Star Award for the best movie from Texas. The debut writer and director credit for Channing Godfrey Peoples is hopeful for a June 19 release date, in line with 155th anniversary of Juneteenth – but given COVID-19 uncertainties, is making a point to release digitally that day whether theaters are open or not. Nicole Baharie stars as former beauty queen preparing her rebellious daughter (Alexis Chikaeze) for the Juneteenth pageant, marking Texas’ two-years-late abolition of slavery.
