A24 has signed up two of Britain’s hottest TV drama producers as it moves to expand its international small-screen output.
The hip producer and distributor on Wednesday unveiled that it was adding Laura Lankester and Will Johnston to its U.K. team, joining former BBC executives Piers Wenger and Rose Garnett.
Lankester and Johnston will exit their current roles as co-CEOs of Lookout Point to work with Wenger and Garnett to “expand, shape, and grow the studio’s global television slate,” A24 said in a statement.
The pair has worked with writer Sally Wainwright on some of the most acclaimed British television of the last decade, including Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack, and Last Tango in Halifax, and Renegade Nell, as well as on Andrew Davies’ adaptation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. They are currently in production, with BBC Studios, on a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for Netflix. Lankester and Johnston will continue with that production and Lankester will also oversee BritBox’s upcoming limited series Tommy and Tuppence for Lookout Point and BBC Studios.
They join A24 as the indie studio continues to ramp up its U.K. series slate, fueled by deep-pocketed capital investment. (The latest round, a $250 million bump led by a $75 million investment from Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, valued A24 at $3.5 billion.) Upcoming Brit series projects include Major Players for Channel 4, the series debut of How to Have Sex director Molly Manning Walker; Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You follow-up, First Day on Earth, for the BBC and HBO; Miriam Battye’s The Husbands for Apple TV+; Leo Reich’s It Gets Worse for Channel 4; and Alice Birch’s Ministry of Time for the BBC. A24 is also collaborating on Adam Curtis’ BBC series Shifty, Season 2 of the BBC/Showtime series Dreaming Whilst Black and Kat Sadler’s Such Brave Girls, and the upcoming Liverpool FC series written by Adolescence writer/creator Jack Thorne.
“We are excited and invigorated to join A24,” Lankester and Johnston said in a statement. “Their commitment to creative excellence is an inspiration, and to build with Piers and Rose is a wonderful new opportunity. Our time at Lookout Point has been a real joy and incredibly formative. We are deeply grateful to the colleagues and friends we have been honoured to work with, and to BBC Studios for ten years of success and partnership.”
A24 made its first big move into the U.K. TV three years ago, hiring Garnett, then director of BBC Film, and BBC Drama head Wenger to run the company’s international slate.
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