eOne designates drama for Mipcom

Designated Survivor will air on ABC in the US

Transatlantic producer and distributor Entertainment One (eOne) is taking a slew of new dramas to Mipcom next month, including Kiefer Sutherland’s thriller Designated Survivor.

The show sees Sutherland, who will attend Mipcom, play a low-level politician who becomes US president after an attack in Washington DC.

It’s being produced by The Mark Gordon Company, which eOne bought for US$132.6m last year.

eOne’s slate also includes The Mark Gordon Company’s legal drama Conviction, produced with ABC Studios, comedy series Foreign Bodies and serialized crime drama Cardinal.

Elsewhere hostage drama Ransom, which is being coproduced by CBS in the US, French commercial net TF1 and Corus Media’s Global channel in Canada, is a thriller from Frank Spotnitz’s Big Light Productions, Sienna Films and Wildcat Productions.

Stuart Baxter, president of sales arm eOne Television International, said the firm would “see the benefits” of its increased production in Cannes next month with titles “that will appeal across a wide-range of buyers and a slew of high calibre A-list talent in attendance to support those launches.”

The Peppa Pig owner has had a tumultuous 12 months after seeing its share price plummet amid fears about debt refinancing and the profitability of its movie business.

It then partially recovered before ITV offered around £1bn for the company earlier this summer, a deal rebuffed by the producer-distributor and subsequently withdrawn by ITV.