Starzplay Buys UK Rights To Spanish Erotic Thriller ‘Instinto’ & Nordic Noir ‘Sanctuary’ From Studiocanal, Lines Up ‘The Rook’

Spanish erotic thriller Instinto and Nordic Noir thriller Sanctuary are heading to streaming service Starzplay in the UK.

The digital platform will launch the pair of acquisitions from Studiocanal and will launch the scripted series on December 5. Separately, Starzplay will air Starz original drama The Rook in the UK.

Instinto follows Marco Mur, an attractive, successful businessman, whose trauma from his past prevents him from getting emotionally involved with women. Instead, he has intimate encounters in a club where no one knows anyone else. But when his past returns Marco is forced to face it and all the other conflicts in his life. The series stars Mario Casas (The Mule), Ingrid Garcia-Jonsson (Beautiful Youth), Oscar Casas (The Orphanage), Silvia Alonso (Shrew’s Nest) and Bruna Cusi (Red Bracelets).

Created and written by Teresa Fernández-Valdés, Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, it is produced by Teresa Fernández-Valdés and Ramon Campos and executive produced by Domingo Corral for Bambù Producciones and Movistar+.

Sanctuary, starring Stranger Things’ Matthew Modine, is a suspenseful psychological thriller that asks the question ‘what could be worse than being imprisoned in a locked-down clinic where nothing is what it seems, and nobody believes you are who you say you are?’.

Based on Marie Hermanson’s novel The Devil’s Sanctuary, the series stars Modine and Josefin Asplund (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Written by Wire in the Blood’s Charlie Fletcher and EastEnders’ Rachel Flowerday, it is produced by Yellow Bird in coproduction with TMG and Canal+ Poland. Marianne Gray (Headhunters) and Roy Anderson (Ragnarok) produce.

Meanwhile, The Rook will launch in the UK on November 28 following its launch in the U.S. The supernatural spy series tells the story of Myfanwy Thomas (Emma Greenwell), a woman who wakes up in the rain beside London’s Millennium Bridge with no memory of who she is and no way to explain the circle of latex-gloved dead bodies splayed around her. When Myfanwy discovers she is a high-ranking official in the Checquy, Britain’s last secret service for people with paranormal abilities, she will have to navigate the dangerous and complex world of the agency to uncover who wiped her memory – and why she is a target. It also stars Olivia Munn.