Canadian Producers, Lawless in Drama Deal

TORONTO/LOS ANGELES, June
4: Canadian writer-producer Kathy Slevin has aligned with executive producer
Phyllis Platt of Platt Productions, responsible for the CBC’s Booky family TV-movie trilogy, and Cathy Malatesta and
Bryan Taw of Los Angeles-based Lawless Entertainment, for the production of new
scripted series.

Platt, Slevin and the
Lawless Entertainment team are now seeking international partners for a
development slate of drama and comedy series that they plan to jointly produce
in Canada.

Slevin is a
writer-producer and former long-time development chief for Paul Haggis (Million
Dollar Baby, Crash) with whom Slevin co-wrote features and developed
such series as Walker Texas Ranger
and Due South.

During Platt’s tenure as
the head of programming at CBC, she supervised the development and production
of a range of Canadian television series, movies and mini-series, including This
Hour Has 22 Minutes, The
Newsroom, Wind At My Back, Butterbox Babies and DaVinci’s Inquest. Since establishing Platt Productions, she has
produced television movies like Betrayed, Open Heart, Shania and the CBC trilogy Booky Makes Her Mark, Booky and the Secret Santa and Booky’s Crush.

Malatesta, formerly the
senior VP of Warner International and VP and general manager of Westinghouse
Broadcasting, is an international television producer with more than 20 years
of experience in securing partnerships both in the U.S. and abroad. Taw,
Lawless’s VP, brings more than ten years of experience in marketing, production
and distribution in both live action and animation.

—By Irene Lew