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Welcome to Deadline’s The Hot Ones — Docs, our guide to some of the best documentaries being sold at MIPCOM this year. Our editorial team has done extensive research in the run-up to the 2024 market and has handpicked a selection of the projects set to be big talking points at this year’s event in Cannes.

In between meetings and cocktail parties, you’re sure to hear whispers about the next potential global hit, and The Hot Ones is here to guide you. So scroll down for the best in the docs game including Martin Scorsese’s Saints, Seven.One Studios’ If Pigs Could Talk and Newen’s exploration of the Paris catacombs.

Empire of the Dead Newen Connect

Distributor: Newen Connect

Length: 1 x 52’

Producer: Matcha Productions, Capa

Network: France Télévisions

Paris has spent a fair bit of this summer in the headlines with the Olympic Games followed by the Paralympics,...

BBC Studios Pounces On ‘Big Cats 24/7’ Sales

BBC Studios and PBS’s upcoming natural history show Big Cats 24/7 has landed a host of pre-buyers ahead of MIPCOM Cannes. In China, Bilibili, iQiyi, Tencent, Youku and linear channel CCTV World Geography have bought the BBC Studios Natural History Unit-produced show, along with Yle (Finland), France Televisions (France), Sky Deutschland (Germany) and Movistar Plus+ (Spain). The show will also be available on the BBC Earth channel in Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Romania, Malta, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa and Turkey. In Asia, it will be on BBC Earth and SVOD service BBC Player in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. The six-part series follows the lives of lions, cheetahs and leopards in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, a place described as one of Africa’s last wildernesses. BBC Studios is heading to Cannes with...

Sony/Eleventh Hour Signs Deal With Hill 5.14

Sony Pictures Television (Spt) and its UK subsidiary, Eleventh Hour Films, have struck a first-look deal with Hill 5.14, a Black female-led scripted TV label led by Tobi Olujinmi. Eleventh Hour will get a first-look option to co-develop and co-produce TV projects from the Hill 5.14 slate, with Spt acting as distributor. Olujinmi launched Hill 5.14 in late 2022, having previously worked as Eleventh Hour, and has gone on to work with writers such as Phoebe Okeowo (The Power), Bella Heesom (Sex Education), Victoria Asare-Archer (Missing You) and Thara Poopla (Sex Education) and on-screen talent such as Weruche Opia (I May Destroy You), Adelayo Adebayo (The Responder) and Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton). “I am beyond thrilled to be working with Sony Pictures and Ehf for the next phase of Hill 5.14’s journey,” said Olujinmi. “It’s the dream team. Their joint expertise, experience and track record of delivering...

Exclusive: Steve Michaels, boss of Asylum Entertainment Group, is continuing his Endeavor-backed M&a drive.

The company has invested in British production company Soho Studios Entertainment, founded by former Alaska TV and Zodiak exec Ian Lamarra.

It marks the latest investment for Michaels’ group, which bought a stake in Dawn Airey’s British production company Moon&Back Media last September.

It comes nearly a year after WME owner Endeavor acquired a majority stake in Asylum with plans to “supercharge” its footprint with a major M&a drive that has seen it invest in a number of nonscripted businesses.

Soho Studios was founded by Lamarra in 2022 with former Objective Media Group boss Paul Sandler and Money Group Entertainment CEO Francis Ridley as co-founding directors.

Its first series order was for ITV’s The Playboy Bunny Murder, a two-part documentary series from Marcel Theroux, which told the murders of three young women in London,...

Welcome to Deadline’s The Hot Ones, our guide to some of the best television being sold at Mipcom next week. Our editorial team has done extensive research in the run-up to the 2023 market and handpicked what we think are sure to be the shows that will be big talking points at this year’s event in Cannes. In between meetings and cocktail parties, you’re sure to hear whispers about the next potential global hit and The Hot Ones is here to guide you. Here’s three top docs headed for the Croisette.

The Playboy Bunny Murders

Distributor: Blue Ant International

Length: 2×60’

Producers: Soho Studios, Future Studios

The Playboy Bunny Murders is a story so pressing that its presenter Marcel Theroux was “going to do it whether there was a TV commission or not,” says executive producer John Farrar of the Itvx two-parter.

Theroux, older brother of recent MacTaggart lecture giver Louis Theroux,...

Marcel Theroux To Investigate Playboy Bunny Murders

Louis Theroux’s brother Marcel Theroux is to investigate the playboy bunny murders for Itvx. In The Playboy Bunny Murders, the novelist will examine the brutal murders that shocked London in the 1970s, when Eve Stratford, a Playboy Bunny who aspired to be a famous model, Lynda Farrow, a croupier with years of experience working in nighttime London, and Lynne Weedon, a schoolgirl whose whole life lay ahead of her, were all murdered. Itvx has gained exclusive access to friends, colleagues and relatives of the victims and will provide intimate insight, as Theroux attempts to track down police files, examines new breakthroughs and travels across the world in search of answers. Soho Studios and Future Studios are producing the two-parter for the ITV streaming service. Theroux said the story has “obsessed him for years.” Executive producers are Ian Lamarra for Soho Studios and John Farrar for Future Studios.

Restructuring

Multinational cinema operator Cineworld‘s proposed restructuring now has the backing of most of its lenders, the company said on Thursday.

The restructuring, which was announced in April, “now has the support of lenders holding and controlling approximately 99% of the legacy facilities and at least 69% of the outstanding indebtedness under the debtor-in-possession facility of Cineworld and certain of its subsidiaries,” the group said in a statement.

Cineworld Group and its subsidiaries had commenced Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court in September 2022. The group now expects to emerge from the Chapter 11 cases in July and will continue to operate its cinemas as usual without interruption, it said.

The lenders have also agreed to amended and restated versions of the restructuring support agreement and the backstop commitment agreement, which were filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court.

Cineworld owns the Regal cinema chain and is the second largest movie theater operator in the world.

Unreported World | Castle | 4Funnies: Uncle | James Bond 50th Anniversary Gala Concert | Jack Irish: Bad Debts | An Idiot Abroad

Unreported World

7.30pm, Channel 4

Ksenia Sobchak is about as well connected as one can get in Russia. Raised as part of the elite that got rich in the wake of the collapse of the Ussr, she was, until recently, best known as a socialite and Big Brother host. Then she started criticising family friend Vladimir Putin's government. Instead of appearing on mainstream TV, she now hosts a political discussion show on a small cable channel, and armed cops have raided her flat. Reporter Marcel Theroux and director David Fuller meet Sobchak, and look on as she records an interview with Pussy Riot's Katya Samutsevich. Jonathan Wright

Castle

10pm, Channel 5

A retired bank robber is found dead in his car, seemingly the result of an interrogation that went too far. Castle...

By the Associated Press

Tycoons, evolution and the environment were among the subjects of this year's National Book Award nominees.

Marcel Theroux's global-warming novel, ''Far North,'' and T.J. Stiles' ''The First Tycoon,'' a biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, were some of the finalists announced Wednesday. Two books about evolution, including a story for young people about Charles Darwin, were also nominated.

Read more from the AP.