Idris Elba Talent Firm Artists Partnership Launches Production Unit

The Artists Partnership, the UK agency that looks after the likes of Idris Elba and Emily Blunt, is moving into production.

The company has launched The Development Partnership to develop and produce television and films. It is the latest agency to move into the production space.

Headed up by Robert Taylor and group CEO Roger Charteris, The Development Partnership will work with its client list to develop projects. It will work with third party production companies on a project-by-project basis. It is currently working on scripted projects Marcella star Anna Friel and Joseph Fiennes and a feature film with McMafia star James Norton.

It already has three talent-lead premium factual series in production and a slate of feature films and scripted television projects with an array of clients and producing partners in development. It is set to hire a scripted and a non-scripted development head in the next few weeks.

Taylor said, “The identity of the agency, especially for the last 10 years, has been to encourage the client base to be entrepreneurial and to view themselves, and their creative output, as a business that is theirs to grow. As we have seen that bear fruit in recent years, with clients creating and producing shows, and in some cases starting their own production companies, we wanted to make sure we had an infrastructure in place within the group that allowed us to offer a place where those ideas could be incubated and we could creatively partner with our clients on seeing them to fruition.”