Exclusive: Amazon Freevee coming-of-age drama series Beyond Black Beauty has begun principal photography, with shooting of the Amazon Studios, Sinking Ship Entertainment and Leif Films show underway in Canada.
Inspired by the novel of the same name, Beyond Black Beauty follows Jolie Dumont, an Olympic-driven equestrian whose journey is halted when her mother moves them from their posh Belgium life to Baltimore. There Jolie struggles to find roots but as she bonds with an equally spirited horse named Black Beauty, and learns to embrace her family’s ranch, where Black cowboys have been entrenched in their DNA for over a century.
Kaya Coleman (The Sinners) stars as Jolie and Sagine Sémajuste (13: The Musical) as her mother Janelle. Gina James (Hogtown: Code\Switch) and Lisa Berry (Workin’ Moms) also star in the Canadian/Belgian co-production, which began filming recently in Canada, with production scheduled to wrap in Belgium in October.
Inspired by the novel of the same name, Beyond Black Beauty follows Jolie Dumont, an Olympic-driven equestrian whose journey is halted when her mother moves them from their posh Belgium life to Baltimore. There Jolie struggles to find roots but as she bonds with an equally spirited horse named Black Beauty, and learns to embrace her family’s ranch, where Black cowboys have been entrenched in their DNA for over a century.
Kaya Coleman (The Sinners) stars as Jolie and Sagine Sémajuste (13: The Musical) as her mother Janelle. Gina James (Hogtown: Code\Switch) and Lisa Berry (Workin’ Moms) also star in the Canadian/Belgian co-production, which began filming recently in Canada, with production scheduled to wrap in Belgium in October.
- 9/21/2022
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: eOne has upped non-scripted exec Ben Megargel.
Megargel has been promoted to SVP, Development, Unscripted Television at the company. He was previously VP.
He will continue to build out eOne’s slate of unscripted series, including those based on Hasbro IP, while working with partners and talent.
Megargel joined the company in 2014 as Director of Development. He has helped create programming including WEtv’s long-running Growing Up Hip-Hop franchise, BET+’s docuseries The Impact Atl and Netflix’s upcoming competition series Easy-Bake Battle.
He has also served as executive producer on true crime miniseries Oxygen’s The Fatal Attraction Murder, WEtv reality series Brat Loves Judy, and VH1’s upcoming Hall of Love: The Ultimate Dating Experiment.
Separately, Valerie Dean has been promoted to Senior Director, Development, Unscripted Television. Dean joined from ICM in 2014 and developed VH1’s My Celebrity Dream Wedding. The company has also added Devorn Hannah as Director,...
Megargel has been promoted to SVP, Development, Unscripted Television at the company. He was previously VP.
He will continue to build out eOne’s slate of unscripted series, including those based on Hasbro IP, while working with partners and talent.
Megargel joined the company in 2014 as Director of Development. He has helped create programming including WEtv’s long-running Growing Up Hip-Hop franchise, BET+’s docuseries The Impact Atl and Netflix’s upcoming competition series Easy-Bake Battle.
He has also served as executive producer on true crime miniseries Oxygen’s The Fatal Attraction Murder, WEtv reality series Brat Loves Judy, and VH1’s upcoming Hall of Love: The Ultimate Dating Experiment.
Separately, Valerie Dean has been promoted to Senior Director, Development, Unscripted Television. Dean joined from ICM in 2014 and developed VH1’s My Celebrity Dream Wedding. The company has also added Devorn Hannah as Director,...
- 8/31/2022
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
Amazon Studios is merging its Prime Video and Freevee unscripted teams under the oversight of reality TV vet Chris Castallo. Having previously focused on Prime Video fare, Castallo will now oversee unscripted for both outlets and report to Lauren Anderson, who was recently named head of AVOD original content and programming at Amazon Studios.
The move comes following a restructure inside Amazon’s ad-supported video on demand service. Earlier this month, Ryan Pirozzi was named head of Freevee, overseeing the business side of the streaming service, while Anderson was given oversight for programming, which includes development, production, licensing, scheduling, research and strategy for Freevee and Prime Video’s ad-supported Fast linear channels. Anderson and Pirozzi had formerly served as co-heads of content and programming for Amazon Freevee (the ad-supported video on demand service that had been known as IMDb TV).
Castallo previously reported to Marc Resteghini, the US/Global Head of Development at Amazon Studios.
The move comes following a restructure inside Amazon’s ad-supported video on demand service. Earlier this month, Ryan Pirozzi was named head of Freevee, overseeing the business side of the streaming service, while Anderson was given oversight for programming, which includes development, production, licensing, scheduling, research and strategy for Freevee and Prime Video’s ad-supported Fast linear channels. Anderson and Pirozzi had formerly served as co-heads of content and programming for Amazon Freevee (the ad-supported video on demand service that had been known as IMDb TV).
Castallo previously reported to Marc Resteghini, the US/Global Head of Development at Amazon Studios.
- 8/23/2022
- by Michael Schneider
- Variety Film + TV
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