HBO veterans reunite at Legendary

Fledgling joint-venture production company Legendary Global has brought in Anne Thomopoulos as a partner, reuniting her with former HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht.

Anne Thomopoulos

Thomopoulos will focus on identifying and acquiring international content at the firm, working alongside Albrecht, who set up the company last year with Legendary Entertainment in the US.

The moves comes as part of the company’s remit to English-language programming that will appeal to local platforms and also play to a worldwide audience.

Thomopoulos and Albrecht had a successful run together in the 1990s and 2000s at HBO, where Albrecht served as chairman and CEO and Thomopoulos created and oversaw the network’s then-fledgling drama series department.

During this time the network had break-out shows including Rome and Band of Brothers.

Thomopoulos comes to Legendary Global from the CAA’s global television department, which she joined last year.

Thomopoulos began her career at HBO, developing the channel’s dramatic series department. She was responsible for developing critically acclaimed drama Oz and later established the miniseries division with From the Earth to the Moon and Band of Brothers.

She left HBO in 2006 to become an independent producer. Since then she developed and executive produced the HBO/BBC historical drama Rome, HBO miniseries Generation Kill and Camelot for Starz.

Thomopoulos also produced Borgia for Canal+ and executive produces The Black Box for ABC and Versailles for Canal+. She also helped produce historical drama The Collection for France 3 and Amazon and season one of Britannia for Sky.

Most recently she produced The Hook Up Plan, a French-language romantic comedy series that debuted on Netflix in December 2018. A dual national of the US and France, Thomopoulos lives between Paris and LA.

“Anne’s ability to identify and foster content that resonates with audiences around the world is second to none. To work together again on this global stage is an opportunity to continue our collaboration across boarders in the pursuit of great content and the growth of Legendary Global,” said Albrecht.

“The combination of working with Legendary to grow their global television strategy and reuniting with Chris Albrecht was an opportunity I couldn’t resist,” added Thomopoulos.

Legendary Global recently announced the acquisition of Robert Whiting’s book Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times & Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan, with Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire) set to write the pilot with Sherry Marsh attached as an executive producer.

It has also set Jack Thorne to write and executive produce a retelling of Charles Dickens’ classic novel A Tale of Two Cities.