Atrium TV, the drama-commissioning club for pay-TV platforms and telcos, has set out a new slate that includes shows from Michael Douglas, Ava DuVernay, David Simon, and the producers of “Sherlock.” “Quasimodo,” which was shown to Atrium members last October, will also move forward, joining the already-announced moon-landing project “One Giant Leap” from veteran producer Mike Medavoy.
Atrium TV was created by former Sony boss Howard Stringer and Jeremy Fox and is owned by MTG’s London-based distributor DRG. It has members from different regions who are presented with projects that they can co-fund and market locally as originals. The members, including Televisa, Viaplay, BT TV, and Deutsche Telekom, gathered in L.A. on Sunday to get a first look at a new slate of projects.
The streets of San Francisco will look very different in Michael Douglas-produced “Silo,” one of the new shows in Atrium’s lineup. A high-concept drama, it will be set in a futuristic version of the city, where the haves live in gated communities and the have-nots live on the other side of the wall. Douglas will produce with Peter Horton (“Grey’s Anatomy”), who writes alongside Raelle Tucker (“Jessica Jones”).
Variety was the first to report that David Simon (“The Wire,” “The Deuce”) is working on a series about a battalion of Americans in the Spanish Civil War; it has now emerged that the show, titled “A Dry Run: The Lincolns in Spain,” is for Atrium. Mark Johnson (“Rain Man”) is attached as a producer, and Spain’s Mediapro (“The Young Pope”) will make the series.
“Sherlock” producer Hartswood Films and “Riviera’s” Foz Allan are adapting Boris Pasternak’s classic novel “Doctor Zhivago.” “Vikings” scribe Michael Hirst will pen the series, which the producers said would stick more closely to the original novel than the 1965 David Lean picture.
(Excerpt) Read More in: Variety