Legendary Entertainment Enters JV with Emma Frost & Matthew Graham

Legendary Entertainment has partnered with showrunners Emma Frost and Matthew Graham to form a new U.K.-based joint venture, Watford & Essex.

Launching with a slate of ten projects in development, the drama production company will see Frost and Graham (Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, The White Queen, The Spanish Princess, Doctor Who and The Man in the High Castle) serving as joint CEOs. The pair will team with Legendary Entertainment’s television division and focus on TV production and financing of projects built for the international market.

Christine Healy has been named as COO of Watford & Essex, joining the venture from New Pictures, where she had served as head of production since 2016.

The venture will develop, produce and deficit finance British and international high-end scripted programming across a range of genres, working with networks, co-producers and financiers in all markets.

Watford & Essex’s current list of projects in development includes Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, a futuristic underwater adventure series based upon the classic Irwin Allen television series from the 1960s; Hail, Satan!, a dark social comedy-drama created by Frost and Graham and in development with Channel 4 in the U.K.; Championess, inspired by the forthcoming Legendary Comics graphic novel based on a true story, created by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas; Roxana, a dark and funny parable about female identity, adapted from the Daniel Defoe novel by Frost; a contemporary thriller from BAFTA Award-winning Stephen Butchard; and an original project from BAFTA-nominated Rob Williams.

There’s also Matilda, a Medieval female-driven political adventure series created by Graham; Heat, an original supernatural YA drama set on a London housing estate, created by Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre; the tentatively titled The Alice, a family medical drama set in Australia, created by Ashley Pharoah; and Amazonia, an epic environmental thriller from International Emmy winner Misha Glenny, BBC broadcaster and journalist Kirsty Lang and Robert Muggah and Ilona Szabo of the Rio-based Igarapé Institute.

Frost and Graham said: “It is such a treat for us to be in partnership with Legendary on this new adventure. With Legendary’s success, talent and experience behind us, we’re confident that we can make some great, hit shows and have a blast doing it! TV continues to enjoy a golden age of creative diversity and risk. We’ve always enjoyed pushing the envelope in terms of bold and genre-bending ideas, and Legendary has always put fearless creativity at the center of their business. These two styles can only grow and develop with this new company.”

Chris Albrecht, managing director of Legendary Television, said: “We are thrilled to launch this new venture with Emma and Matthew, who have proven time and time again to be masterful storytellers, and to develop a slate of international projects that foster diversity and nurture both young and accomplished creative talent alike.”