Ewan McGregor (Obi Wan Kenobi) has been cast as the lead in Paramount+’s upcoming UK drama seriesMoscow, A Gentleman, news that comes Paramount Premium Group CEO David Nevins laid out his vision for Paramount+’s international expansion and talked creativity at the Edinburgh TV Festival.
Emmy-Award actor McGregor will play Count Alexander Rostov who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past places him on the wrong side of history, in the adaptation of Amor Towles international best-selling novel that’s going into production later this year.
McGregor’s character synopsis continues: “Spared immediate execution, he is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol, threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside again. As the years pass and some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors, Rostov’s reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. As he builds a new life within the walls of the hotel, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.”
As Deadline revealed, Kenneth Branagh had been announced for the role in 2018. However, McGregor will now take the role of the Count.
McGregor said: “It’s an amazing, wonderful story and I am very excited to get to play such a fabulous role.”
Paramount content chief Nevins, who also oversees Showtime, made the announcement today at the Edinburgh TV Festival during an interview conversation with former Sky Studios exec and new BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip, during which he also unveiled Antoine Fuqua’s Showtime seriesKing Shaka.
The Paramount+ International original will be produced by eOne in association with VIS, the international studio division of Paramount Global, and will air on Showtime in the U.S. It’s the first production to come through eOne’s first-look deal with Tom Harper’s company Popcorn Storm Pictures.
Harper said: “The book is a rare and delicious treat and I fell in love with it the moment I picked it up 6 years ago. We are thrilled that Amor entrusted this brilliant team with bringing the Metropol to life and couldn’t be more delighted that Ewan will be playing the Count.”
McGregor will serve as an executive producer alongside Ben Vanstone, the showrunner.All Creatures Great And Small, The Last Kingdom), Harper (War and Peace, Peaky Blinders), Xavier Marchand (Nautilus, Mrs Harris goes to ParisAmor Towles (author) is also a fan of the novel. It has been sold over four million copies in total worldwide.
McGregor is represented by UTA, Narrative and Sloane Offer Weber & Dern.
Expansion Plans
Paramount+ will commission 150 originals from around the world by 2025. Moscow, A GentlemanParamount+ international markets and the UK will see it debut in 2023. Flatshare,Sexy Beast No Escape. It will launch in Italy next month, and later in the year, it will be available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Austria, and France. The distribution of the service will then increase. SkyShowtime, a Comcast joint venture, will also launch in other territories.
Nevins told Deadline in an exclusive interview before his Edinburgh session that Paramount was taking a more measure approach to the streamer’s rollout than other global services, but predicted launches across Europe and numerous other territories within the next few years.
He was struck by the fact that international expansion had prompted him to reassess potential projects such asSexy BeastThe film is based on the 2000 British Gangster Film of the Same Name. Although it was pitched to him at the time he was leading Showtime, he felt it was not appropriate for an American cable audience.
“There’s a reason why Sexy Beastwas not greenlit when I first saw it five or six years ago,”He said. “Now, I’m looking for a subscriber in Bristol or Aberdeen — those subscribers are just as good as a subscriber in Denver or Houston. But we’re not making Sexy Beast just for the British market. I think it’s gonna do well in the U.S. and the UK, and I think it will play in Italy and France too. The kinds of things that I’m focused on are hopefully going to move across territories.”
He noted that Paramount’s local commissioning infrastructures in Europe, where the company has numerous linear channels, would help Paramount+ reach its target of international series orders. Paramount has received several major commissions in the UK where it owns Channel 5 terrestrial network.
Nevins, who was addressing the effect of global streaming in the context of how Paramount & Showtime have lent to existing IP, brought up the topic of the impact that global streaming has on the industry. “It’s not a coincidence that this rise of franchise and known IP corresponded with the explosion of choice in a non-linear environment,”He said. “That is the Darwinian ecosystem of television.”
He noticed howHalohad become second most watched show on Paramount+ with an audience far broader than those that play the video games, whileGrease: Rise of the Pink LadiesM was a spin-off from the 1978 musical movie. It was about bringing together a “beloved movie that’s transcended generations… into a new age.”
He also pointed to series remake of Paul Schrader’sAmerican GigoloThe following were those whose progenitors enjoyed a smaller, more cultlike following. “They can be treated quite differently,”He added.
Millichip asked Nevins if he believed the U.S. Entertainment Industry had a responsibility to respond to the politically-charged decisions of the Supreme Court.
“I don’t know if I have a duty but I certainly have an interest,”He replied by noting that the BBC had recently co-produced the filmThe Woman in the Wall, starring Ruth Wilson, which explores the Catholic Church’s notorious Magdalene Laundries, where ‘fallen women’Atoned for ‘sins’Such as teenage pregnancy and adultery.
“It will inevitably feel like it’s reflecting the moment we are living in now,”He said.