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Just when The Bad Guy tried to get out, Amazon pulled him back in.

Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday unveiled a second season order for the Italian crime series, starring Luigi Lo Cascio and Claudia Pandolfi, which has been a hit with audiences and critics.

Stefano Accorsi (Italian Race) will join the cast for season 2, alongside returning cast members including Selene Caramazza, Giulia Maenza and Antonio Catania. Season 2 shot on location in Lazio, Emilia Romagna and Sicily.

Lo Cascio stars in The Bad Guy as Nino Scotellaro, an incorruptible Sicilian public prosecutor who is imprisoned on false accusations of collusion with the mafia. Once inside, he decides to pull off a Machiavellian revenge plan, embracing the “bad guy” image that has been forced upon him.

Season 2, which series producers say will be a mix of “crime and dark comedy,” will explore Scotellaro’s past as well as his likely future,...

The Italian film and television industry could step into the gap left by the dual Hollywood strikes, leading industry executives said at a panel, organized in collaboration with the Audiovisivo Italiae, at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

“If supply decreases with Hollywood on strike, we need to be ready with our products for the international market as well,” said Francesco Rutelli, president of the Italian national audiovisual association Anica, speaking at a panel moderated by THR Roma editor-in-chief Concita De Gregorio.

“We need to interpret market changes in real-time. And we need the government to issue certain rules with respect to these changes. It’s not a matter of changing the system’s regulations, but of adjusting them quickly to the changed and rapid changes taking place.”

Maria Pia Ammirati director of Rai Fiction, a division of Italy’s national public broadcaster, noted that since the beginning of...

Francesca Cima’s office at Indigo Film is adonred in Beatles memorabilia. There’s a black and white photo of John, Paul, George and Ringo, a John Lennon Russian doll, a music anthology. Is Cima a Beatles maniac?

“It’s Nicola, actually,” says Cima, “we shared this office for years. It ended up rubbing off on me. We should probably do a division of assets.”

The Fab Four might have pride of place but Indigo’s headquarters in Rome, appropriately, is adorned with posters of the many films and series Cima and co-founders Nicola Giuliano and Carlotta Calori have made over the years, as well as the numerous awards won for them, including the Oscar and BAFTA for Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty. On our way in, we pass a poster for Sophie Chiarello’s Il Cerchio — which just won best documentary at David di Donatello Awards — Italy’s...

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If there’s one thing the world doesn’t need, it’s another Italian mafia series. Mob shows have become the go-to genre for the Italian industry, the global success of shows like Gomorrah (on HBO in the U.S.) and Suburra (on Netflix) having spawned several (mostly inferior) imitations.

But The Bad Guy, the new mafia show from Indigo film and Amazon Studios, is something different.

The series, which bowed on Amazon worldwide in early December, breaks new ground in how the mafia and the forces that fight organized crime, are depicted on Italian TV.

The series, set in a near-future Sicily, stars Luigi Lo Cascio (The Traitor, The Best Of Youth) as Nino Scotellaro, a former anti-mob prosecutor imprisoned on trumped-up charges of collusion with the Cosa Nostra. Furious at the injustice, he vows revenge. Over the course of the six-episode first season,...

Amazon unveiled its slate at its Prime Video Presents Italy event.

Indigo Films’ Bad Guy, a modern mafia take on The Count Of Monte Cristo, was among the new Italian original productions unveiled by Amazon Studios at its Prime Video Presents Italy event on Wednesday (May 27).

The series starts shooting in July and will be directed by Giuseppe Stasi and Giancarlo Fontana (Put Grandma In The Freezer). Writers are Davide Serino and Ludovica Rampoldi. Previous Indigo productions include Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty and Netflix series Ultras.

Also unveiled was Prisma, a young adult drama from Ludovico Bessegato (Skam...

Amazon unveiled its slate at its Prime Video Presents Italy event.

Indigo Films’ Bad Guy, a modern mafia take on The Count Of Monte Cristo, was among the new batch of Italian original productions unveiled by Amazon Studios at its Prime Video Presents Italy event on Wednesday (May 27).

The series starts shooting in July and will be directed by Giuseppe Stasi and Giancarlo Fontana (Welcome Back Mr. President). Writers are Davide Serino and Ludovica Rampoldi. Previous Indigo productions include Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty and Netflix series Ultras.

Also unveiled was Prisma, a young adult drama from Ludovico Bessegato...

Amazon Prime Video today revealed upcoming projects from its Italian office, including a pair of new original series that have received the greenlight: The Bad Guy and Prisma.

An event held in Rome, which press attended remotely, saw virtual appearances from top Amazon executives including Amazon Studio’s chief Jennifer Salke and Head of European Originals Georgia Brown. Moderating proceedings, Amazon’s Head of Italian Originals Nicole Morganti unveiled several new projects:

Dark crime comedy The Bad Guy revolves around the story of Nino Scotellaro, a Sicilian public prosecutor who devoted his entire life to fighting against the mafia and is suddenly accused of being one of the very men he has always fought against. After being condemned, and with nothing left to lose, Nino decides to pull off a Machiavellian revenge plan.

Giancarlo Fontana and Giuseppe G. Stasi will direct, the project was created by Ludovica Rampoldi, Davide Serino and Stasi and Fontana,...

Amazon Prime Video is stepping up scripted production in Italy with green lights for two new original series: dark Mafia comedy “The Bad Guy,” and young adult coming-of-age drama “Prisma,” which is about twin brothers who go against gender norms in different ways.

The new Italian Amazon Original skeins were announced at a Prime Video Presents Italy 2021 showcase event held in Rome, but attended online by journalists.

With these new shows, Amazon is reaching a presence in Italy comparable to Netflix in terms of volume of original productions.

Prime Video also announced A-list actor Kim Rossi Stuart (pictured) as the lead in their previously announced heist series “Everybody Loves Diamonds” and Arianna Becheroni, Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”), Lucia Mascino and Dora Romano as the ensemble cast of crime drama “Bang Bang Baby,” their first Italian original. These Amazon shows are being produced by Fremantle units Wildside and The Apartment.

Rising...

Though Italy’s box office for the first eight months of 2018 is down, Italian movies account for a quarter of grosses, up from 17% a year ago, a clear sign of local production vibrancy amid alarming theatrical erosion.

Outside the country, Italian cinema is steadily gaining more international traction after the four Oscar nominations (and one win) scored earlier this year by Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name,” followed by two Cannes competition prizewinners, Alice Rohrwacher’s “Happy as Lazzaro” and Matteo Garrone’s “Dogman,” and strong presences at the Venice and Toronto festivals.

The drop in Italian moviegoers amounts to a 7% drop so far this year. That follows a dramatic 12% box office plunge in 2017 and is forcing producers and distributors to come up with some innovative strategies.

Case in point is Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino’s Silvio Berlusconi-themed “Loro,” which was edited into a longer version divided into two installments,...

Italy’s film industry is coming out of a cyclical slump, with executives boasting about a burst of innovation, vitality and growth as they talk up the substantial five-feature cinema Italiano presence at Cannes.

Indeed, the two Italian titles in the fest’s competition — Matteo Garrone’s “Dogman,” described as an “urban Western,” and Alice Rohrwacher’s “Happy as Lazzaro,” about a young peasant who travels in time — are somewhat symptomatic of a shift from naturalism into new genres, which, in terms of narratives, is the biggest novelty. The third Italian pic in the official selection, Valeria Golino’s “Euphoria,” in Un Certain Regard, is a more classic drama about two brothers with opposite characters, but with a fresh flourish.

Roberto Cicutto, who heads film entity Istituto Luce Cinecittà, says the Italian contingent at Cannes proves that, when it comes to movies, the country is “at the forefront” globally and...