‘Clickbait’ Star Phoenix Raei & Hugo Weaving Set For Australian Mystery ‘The Rooster’
Phoenix Raei (Clickbait) and Hugo Weaving (The Matrix) have been set to star in The Rooster, a mystery-drama written and directed by actor Mark Leonard Winter. The Rooster follows small-town cop Dan (Raei). When the body of his oldest friend is found buried in a shallow grave, Dan seeks answers from a volatile hermit (Weaving), who was the last person to see his friend alive. Principal photography has just been completed on Dja Dja Wurrung country in the region of the Hepburn Shire in Victoria, Australia. Producers are Geraldine Hakewill and MahVeen Shahraki for her company Thousand Mile Productions. Executive producers include Susie Montague-Delaney, Patrick James and Michael Kantor. The film will be distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Jonathan Page for Bonsai Films.
BBC Will Never Show Princess Diana Martin Bashir Interview Again, Says DG
The BBC will never show the 1995 Princess Diana interview by Martin Bashir again, Director General Tim Davie has said, as the corporation agrees to pay substantial damages to Diana’s nanny Alexandra Pettifer and says it “let the Royal Family and audiences down.” Davie apologized publicly to Pettifer, who at the time was called Tiggy Legge-Bourke, in a statement in the past few minutes, after Bashir was said to have used smears against her in order to obtain the now-discredited interview, in which Diana said there were “three people” in her marriage. A report into Bashir’s actions have disgraced the former BBC, ABC and NBC journalist. Unless using “short extracts for journalistic purposes,” Davie said the interview will never be shown again nor licensed to other broadcasters. “It is a matter of great regret that the BBC did not get to the facts in the immediate aftermath of the programme when there were warning signs that the interview might have been obtained improperly,” said Davie. “Instead, as The Duke of Cambridge himself put it, the BBC failed to ask the tough questions. Had we done our job properly Princess Diana would have known the truth during her lifetime. We let her, The Royal Family and our audiences down.”
Viaplay Group Acquires Premier Sports UK
Scandinavian Viaplay Group has “accelerated” its UK and sporting footprint with the acquisition of Premier Sports. Premier Sports operates a streamer with 200,000 subs and TV channels in the UK showing the likes of UEFA international football, Spain’s La Liga, rugby, motorsport and ice hockey. Viaplay Group, which recently rebranded from Nent, has been clear about its sporting ambitions and has been busy snapping up sports rights across Europe, as it prepares to launch streamer Viaplay in the UK and other key territories later this year. The Premier buy will “put Viaplay firmly on the UK map and accelerate our development in this key market,” according to Anders Jensen, Viaplay Group President and CEO. The move was unveiled on the day of Viaplay Group’s interim Q2 report, which showed streamer subs have risen to 5.5M.
BBC Landmark Doc To Spotlight Mark Zuckerberg
The BBC’s latest landmark documentary series will present the “definitive account” of Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s 20th anniversary, with Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Productions forging the doc. Zuckerberg (working title) will present access to key people involved in Facebook’s success, insider testimony and rare archive footage that will provide the story of the man whose platform has undoubtedly changed the world. The move comes a few weeks after Deadline revealed the BBC is forging a similar doc on Elon Musk, from Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story indie 72 Films. Mindhouse Creative Director Nancy Strang said: “The remarkable story of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is one of the tales of our time. He has arguably done more to transform human behaviour and connectivity than any other person this century.”