Lionsgate Unveils NATPE Slate

SANTA MONICA, January 23: Lionsgate is heading to NATPE with
a diverse slate of drama, kids’ and reality programming, headlined by the
Golden Globe-winning AMC original series Mad Men.

Mad Men, which
debuted on AMC last year, depicts the professional lives, social mores and
sexual exploits of Madison Avenue advertising executives in the 1960s. Created
by Matthew Weiner and starring Jon Hamm, the series received a Golden Globe for
Best Drama Series, and has been renewed for a second season on AMC.

Other dramas Lionsgate will be bringing include Weeds, a comedy-drama entering its fourth season on
Showtime in the U.S. that explores the life of a suburban pot-dealing mom; The
Kill Point, an eight-hour mini-series
focusing on two men as they square off during a bank heist gone wrong; and the
family drama Wildfire.

The company will also be presenting its first animated
property, Speed Racer: The Next Generation.
The series builds on the adventures of the original 1967 Speed Racer cartoon and follows the exploits of Speed, the
teenage son of the world-famous Speed Racer. The property has already scored
wide-ranging merchandising deals in the U.S.

In the reality genre, Lionsgate will be offering Dirty
Dancing UK: The Time of Your Life. The
10-week reality series follows eight dance couples as they work on their moves
and compete for a grand prize. The series is filmed at Mountain Lake Resort in
Virginia, where the 1980s film Dirty Dancing was shot.

Rounding out the company’s offerings is Fear Itself, a horror anthology series from the team behind the Masters
of Horror franchise. The anthology features
hour-long films by horror writers from around the world. In the U.S., the
series is slated to broadcast on NBC this year, as well as on FEARNet.com,
Lionsgate’s VOD horror channel.

—By Ned Berke