The fledgling international format arm of US and Italian producer Bic Production is readying a Mafia-styled gameshow ahead of Mipcom.

The Godfather Game requires contestants to answer questions and pay varying amounts of protection money to the godfather to avoid being eliminated by his henchmen.

It’s being launched by Bic Formats, which was launched ^[1] earlier this month and designs, develops, produces and distributes new formats covering all genres and platforms.

The division is headed up by CEO Davide Simon Mazzoli, who said the Mafia-inspired gameshow format was the first of its kind and had been inspired by recent shows such as scripted drama Gomorra.

Mazzoli added: “We think that this is a new way to talk about Mafia and blackmail money with a gameshow. For the first time a format – not a TV series or a movie – is facing a very big issue in Italy.”

Bic Formats’ Mipcom slate also includes Just One Letter, which requires contestants to respond to questions by changing a single letter from the previous answer.