International Insider: ’28 Years Later’ Arrives; Landmark Netflix-TF1 Deal; NHK At 100

Another week down, Insiders, and it was a hot one in Europe. We had journalists in France and Spain (at two separate events) to gather up the top stories from the continent, while in the UK, the zombies returned, angrier and scabbier than ever. Sign up to the newsletter here.

‘28 Years Later‘, A Threequel Arrives

Worth the wait: To me, it feels like just yesterday watching Cillian Murphy wander around empty London streets in hospital scrubs in 28 Days Later. It wasn’t though – it was 23 years ago and I’m just showing my age. No doubt, however, that the love for Danny Boyle’s zombie horror franchise has lasted all that time, as proven by the noise around the premiere of the third instalment, and the first since 2007’s 28 Weeks Later. 28 Years Later had become the second-most watched horror trailer in history well before Boyle, writer Alex Garland and producer Andrew Macdonald debuted it in this week in London at a world premiere in Leicester Square – and all the signs are that it’s cutting through. Our social media guru Nada and Breaking Baz were on the red carpet to hear from the likes of Boyle, Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes, along with Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group, Tom Rothman, who tipped us that the film will make a star of 14-year-old lead Alfie Williams. The story is set nearly three decades after the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory and brought down society, in a film that our critic Damon Wise called a “particularly scathing” commentary about “Brexit Britain and its little-islander mentality.” Reviews have been pretty good, with some criticisms about the tone, pacing and ending, and its Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes currently sits at 92%. You can go ever deeper by listening to Anthony D’Alessandro catch up with Boyle on our Crew Call podcast, where they discuss the long journey getting the film to screen and why the Slumdog Millionaire director won’t be directing all three of the planned modern-day 28 trilogy. Anthony also noted Thursday in his box office round-up that 28 Years Later is tracking for a global start of around $56M.

Netflix The Aggregator

“A new kind of partnership”: Big platform news this week came out of Cannes Lions, where Netflix and French commercial network TF1 announced a potentially market-altering partnership. In part borne out of the friendship between TF1 CEO Rodolphe Belmer and Netflix’s top brass, the companies unveiled a “new kind of partnership” that sees five linear TF1 channels and 30,000 hours of on-demand content streaming on Netflix. To this point, Netflix has shown little interest in aggregating linear services – or any rival services, for that matter – but analysts have pointed out that the Netflix-TF1 relationship is a special case that has already seen them create Netflix’s first daily soap in France. However, there’s a sense this is the start of something bigger, as our analysis of the development showed. Truth is, global streamers need to attract older, linear-minded viewers and traditional players need the leverage and access to younger viewers of streaming services. ‘Diagonal integration and co-operation’ is what the big brains over at Ampere Analysis are calling it. You heard it here first.

NHK At 100

Earthquakes and giant squid: Japan’s NHK turned 100 this year and there has never been a better time to celebrate the role of public broadcasting. Good thing, then, that we landed an exclusive interview with President Nobuo Inaba, who detailed how the challenges facing pubcasters today may differ from a century ago, but the battles remain the same. In the 1920s, it was the Great Kantō earthquake that compelled the need for a public broadcaster, while today it has become the flood of disinformation driven by social media from which the public needs saving. Only public broadcasters can battle through the noise, Inaba argued, as he called for greater global collaboration and more shows for young people. Of course, public broadcasters enjoy nothing more than a celebration and a 100th birthday lends quite the excuse. In NHK’s case, a series of special programmes have been airing through the year, including a documentary titled Neo-Japonism and anime adaptation Cocoon. Pressed on his favorite NHK show of the century, Inaba went a bit curveball by opting not for critically-acclaimed drama or doc, but for a natural history series made with Discovery, which captured the world’s first video images of a giant squid. Dive deeper.

Big Week For BBC

Phillips gets Moore responsibilities: The race to succeed Charlotte Moore at the BBC has ended – and the biggest job in British TV commissioning is staying in-house. A month after Deadline had revealed acting Chief Creative Officer Kate Phillips was the frontrunner, the BBC rubber-stamped the appointment, and into a new era we go. She called the job “one of the best roles in the business at an incredible organisation,” and it’s clear she’s got a vision of where she wants to take the UK’s biggest public broadcaster. With a background in unscripted, those in drama and comedy are understandably watching closely, but it’s worth noting they did the same when the Left Bank Pictures-bound Moore became Director of Content in 2016, thanks to her past in documentary. Fair to say her tenure went more than okay. That’s one big headache for BBC Director General Tim Davie fixed, but there’s migraine of a problem over at BBC News, where a PwC consultant has been drafted in to steer an internal review into bullying and misconduct allegations on flagship show Breakfast, which Jake first revealed in this shocking report in April. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

From CineEurope To Cuenca’s Conecta

Slate of play: The U.S. studios had their game faces on and film slates at the ready at CineEurope in Barcelona, Spain, this week. The annual event drew its regular industry crowd, and Nancy Tartaglione was on the ground gathering up the biggest and best of the news. Lionsgate returned after sitting 2024 out, sprinkling some magic dust in the form of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t and confirming Nancy and Matt Grobar’s scoop that Glenn Close and Billy Porter have joined the cast of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. The studio was followed by Sony showing the first 28 minutes of 28 Years Later, Universal touting new Spielberg and Nolan projects, Warner Bros playing 30 minutes of July tentpole Superman, Paramount confirming Meet the Parents 4 and Disney teasing Toy Story 5 during a presentation that culminated in a James Cameron tribute to Jon Landau. Following the fun, Nancy and Anthony revealed the global box office is red hot, with Gower Street predicting a $12.4B summer. Over 300 miles away from Barcelona in the quiet city of Cuenca, I touched down for Conecta Fiction & Entertainment, the annual Spanish TV industry get-together. Nothing quite as splashy there, but reps from Max and Lupin maker Gaumont Television France gave their views on some live issues, as boiling hot temperatures gave way to biblical floods in the mountainous locale. Read the news from Cuenca here.

The Essentials

🌶️ Hot One: The BBC has greenlit Twenty Twenty Six, a successor to comedy series W1A and Twenty Twelve, with Hugh Bonneville reprising his role and Chelsey Crisp, Paulo Costanzo and Stephen Kunken among a blended UK-U.S. cast.

🌶️ Another One: Martin Compston and Aimée-Ffion Edwards are leading the cast of The Revenge Club (w/t), which has Paramount+ UK and Ireland, Gaumont UK and Fremantle attached.

☘️ One for luck: Webtoon manwah Teenage Mercenary is being adapted as a TV anime series by Japan’s Line Digital Frontier.

⛑️ Saved: Ireland’s Playhouse Studios has acquired the assets of UK post house Lipsync, which went into administration last month. Most staff have been retained.

🔭 In focus: Filming Italy Sardegna, the annual Sardinian TV fest that kicked off yesterday. Diana also spoke to festivals specialist Tiziana Rocca in this interview.

👨🏻‍⚕️ Doctor, doctor: Russell T Davies has poured more fuel on the fire over the future of his BBC and Disney+ sci-fi series Doctor Who, saying, “We don’t know what’s happening yet.”

5️⃣0️⃣ Fiddy: Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has taken his 50 Cent Action Channel overseas for the first time.

🦁 Heart of a Lions: Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine launched a Gen Z label, Sunnie, at Cannes Lions.

🤝 New roles: Lookout Point co-CEOs Laura Lankester and Will Johnston hopped over to A24’s UK team.

🏆 Winners: Swedish drama Vanguard, Germany’s One Day in September and CW series Good Cop/Bad Cop took home Golden Nymphs from the Monte-Carlo TV Festival.

Jesse Whittock wrote this week’s Insider. It was edited by Jake Kanter.