Amazon Snaps Up Falco; TV Firms Set Internet Protections; NextUp

Amazon Prime Video is taking Mexican crime drama Falco, a remake of German procedural The Last Cop, across Latin America. The SVOD service has struck a deal with Spiral International and Narcos producer Dynamo to air the local remake of the Red Arrow Studios format. The 15-part series, which is based on the show originally produced by ITV Studios Germany for SAT.1, will star Michel Brown and is directed and showrun by El Chapo’s Ernesto Contreras. The drama, which is set in 1994, follows a policeman with a promising future and a young family who must rebuild his life in 2018 after he wakes up from a 24-year coma after being shot in the line of duty. Contreras called the drama an “exciting cinematic experience”. “In the show, we have established an expressive and stylized language, including the nostalgia of the nineties – when Falco practically ceases to exist. Our primary objective is to create a special visual, audio and emotional universe to tell our story,” he added.

European broadcasters including Germany’s RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 have established a system to safeguard user’s online data. The two companies, along with German telco United Internet have launched the European netID Foundation, an industry standard for Europe to help protect personal data from being exploited by online firms including social media companies. This comes after Cambridge Analytica, a data firm advising the Trump campaign, gained unauthorized access to millions of users’ personal information on Facebook. The foundation’s board will be led by Friedbert Pflüger and Rolf Schwartmann as well as RTL’s Marcus Dimpfel, ProSiebenSat.1’s Daniel Prümers and United Internet’s Jan Oetjen. “Data protection is an international issue, so the European netID Foundation is introducing a standard that extends throughout Europe and across multiple industries,” said Dimpfel.

Former AMC and MGM executive Bruce Tuchman has signed up to serve as a senior advisor for SVOD comedy service NextUp as it searches for investment. The company has doubled its latest investment round, which has seen firms including private equity company Velocity investing. It comes a year after launching with a raft of stand-up performances from the likes of Sean Hughes, Hal Cruttenden and Morgan Murphy. It was created by Daniel Berg, Sarah Henley and Kenny Cavey, the team behind the YouTube channel and live comedy night ComComedy, and Stuart Snaith, the former director for comedy at BBC Worldwide. Tuchman, who was previously president of AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global and formerly President of MGM Networks Worldwide, has invested in the company in addition to his role advising it on global expansion. Tuchman said, “The team at NextUp are experts in their field with huge amounts of collective experience, as well as drive and ambition. I’m looking forward to helping them maximise their distribution channels so they can grow rapidly and dominate the comedy vertical.”