Sky has stepped up its originals slate by 50% this year, with 125 original TV shows and films set to air.
As he gears up towards his target of spending £1bn a year by 2024, Sky managing director of content Zai Bennett has said he wants shows “stuffed full” of British talent that sit between those commissioned by other domestic broadcasters and the high-budget streamers’ shows.
Beyond the current slate, Bennett is looking to target young adults with comedy-dramas, referencing the likes of Netflix’s Stranger Things and Sex Education.
Among Sky’s unscripted slate is The Bambers: Murder at the Farm, a three-parter that re-examines the events previously dramatized by ITV. This is the first non-BBC commission for Louis Theroux’s indie Mindhouse Productions and will be executive produced by Theroux and creative director Arron Fellows.
Also upcoming are Top Hat/Sky Studios' James Jones-directed three-parter Chernobyl 86, a documentary companion to the acclaimed Sky/HBO drama; Arrow Pictures' AIDS documentary Positive; Blast! Films' Liverpool Narcos, which looks at the city’s drugs trade in the 1980s; plus True to Nature's five-part wildlife docu-soap Gangs of Macaque Island.
Dramas include Wolfe, the latest from Shameless creator Paul Abbott, which stars Babou Ceesay as a forensic pathologist.
Further down the line, Sky will serve up Michael Winterbottom’s This Sceptred Isle, a coronavirus drama starring Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson; a new version of sci-fi classic The Midwich Cuckoos written by The Night Manager scribe David Farr; and Kudos' action thriller Extinction, from Giri/Haji creator Joe Barton.
Sky is soon set to confirm two new hires to take over from departing director of drama Cameron Roach.
