HBO, TWC, BBC Align for New Drama Series

NEW YORK, March 10: HBO
will partner with The Weinstein Company (TWC) and the BBC for The No. 1
Ladies’ Detective Agency, based on
Alexander McCall Smith’s international bestselling book series.

Grammy Award-winner Jill
Scott (Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?, Hounddog) stars in the series, whose two-hour pilot was
recently filmed on location in Botswana under the direction of Academy
Award-winner Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain, The English Patient), from a script by Minghella and Academy
Award-nominee Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, HBO’s The Girl in the Café), who will also executive produce. The producers
are Academy Award-winner Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa) and Timothy Bricknell (Cold Mountain) for Mirage Enterprises, along with Amy Moore for
Cinechicks.

In addition to the two-hour
pilot, HBO has ordered 13 one-hour episodes, with filming set to begin this
summer. HBO has obtained the U.S. and Canadian television and home-video
rights, while the BBC has taken over for the U.K. television distribution. TWC,
which controls all other international territories, will be offering the
project at MIPTV in April.

“Alexander McCall Smith’s
wonderful books have been a sensation around the world for years, and we’re
thrilled to be teaming up with the BBC and TWC to adapt these highly entertaining
stories for HBO,” said Richard Plepler, the co-president of HBO. “And needless
to say, the opportunity to work with the exceptionally gifted Anthony Minghella
and Richard Curtis makes this project all the more exciting.”

Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman
of TWC, added, “The Weinstein Company is uniquely positioned to develop and
create television programming that matches the quality viewers expect when
seeing a film in a theater, and having HBO and the BBC on board will provide
this initiative with the broadest possible audience. We are very excited about
this project and so pleased to continue our decade-long collaboration with
Mirage on this new series.”

Jane Tranter, BBC’s
controller for fiction, said, “I am looking forward to continuing a strong
working relationship with Anthony Minghella, Richard Curtis, Mirage and The
Weinstein Company on a new series of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and to partner with HBO on this fabulous project,
following the success of Rome, Five
Days and Stuart: A Life Backwards.”

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski