Yahoo Movies Blumhouse TV, ITV America Ink Exclusive Deal for Unscripted Programming
Blumhouse Television and ITV America have struck an exclusive, multiyear deal for unscripted television, through which Blumhouse will create a new slate of projects in its signature style.
A dedicated Blumhouse team will work with ITV America to “bring the loudest, most intense and unexpected genre, paranormal reality and suspense-driven creative to unscripted,” according to the company. Blumhouse will also work with producers across ITV America’s labels (ITV Entertainment, Leftfield Pictures, Sirens Media, Thinkfactory Media, High Noon Entertainment and Good Caper Content) to develop new concepts.
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“Blumhouse is one of the most exceptional brands in the industry,” said ITV America CEO David George. “They bring a virtually untapped genre to our portfolio, and we are so excited they chose ITV America to help expand their empire. Their provocative sensibilities combined with our diverse production capabilities will create a slate of big shows and formats that will be like none other in the unscripted business. This is going to be edge of your seat and wild!”
The partnership’s first project will be “Escape the Maze,” a genre-theme escaped and competition format that will “follow individual competitors who have been locked inside a dark and mind-scrambling labyrinth,” designed by maze architect Adrian Fisher OBE and the Premier Mission Group. The game will present competitors with a series of physical and psychological challenges designed to frighten and frustrate. Blumhouse and ITV’s Leftfield Pictures, which created the survival experiment “Alone,” are currently shopping the project.
“ITV have been great partners to us already, and we’re thrilled to be expanding upon our relationship with them in unscripted,” said Jason Blum, CEO and founder of Blumhouse. “Together we have some big, wild ideas that viewers are going to have a blast watching.”
The overall deal was negotiated by ITV America executive VP of business development and strategy Danielle Bibbo and executive VP of business affairs Tonko Soljan, with Marc Barson, executive VP and head of business and legal affairs for Blumhouse TV.
“There are no better partners to collaborate with in the unscripted space than ITV, their prowess is unmatched,” said Chris McCumber, president of Blumhouse TV. “They’ve been great, collaborative partners with us in the past, and what we’ve ideated with them already is fun, bold and certain to be an enhancement to our existing unscripted portfolio.”
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