Hulu Japan secures Locked Up

Globomedia’s Spanish thriller Locked Up (Vis a Vis)

MIPCOM: The Japanese version of streaming service Hulu, owned and operated by Nippon TV, has acquired two international drama series.

Hulu has picked up exclusive rights to Spanish thriller Locked Up (Vis a Vis), produced by Globomedia. The deal, with Mediapro’s distribution arm Imagina International Sales, gives Hulu its first Spanish series and covers all four seasons of the drama.

Locked Up will launch in 2019 on Hulu, which will make it available in both subtitled and dubbed versions, online and offline. The first episode of the series will also air on terrestrial network Nippon TV in its Hulu Episode-1 Theatre strand, while the complete first season of will be available on Hulu.

The series, which centres on a young woman imprisoned after stealing for love, aired for two seasons on Antena 3. A third run on FoxSpain ended recently, while a fourth has just completed shooting and will return to the Spanish pay network in 2019.

In a second licensing deal, Indian historical drama series Porus, from Mumbai-based One Life Studios, will be available soon to Hulu’s 1.7 million-plus subscribers. It is also the first Indian series to launch in Japan.

The 260-episode drama, follows the epic battle and eventual defeat of Indian king Porus by Alexander the Great. It comes from Siddharth Kumar Tewary, who wrote, directed and produced the series. He said his vision was to make Potus India’s first global series. The latest deal will make it available 11 countries.