Fifth Season acquires A Thousand Blows producer The Story Collective
Fifth Season has acquired A Thousand Blows producer The Story Collective, the UK-based film and television studio launched with its backing in 2021, and tapped its CEO Damian Keogh for a new role.
The deal, financial details of which were not disclosed, will see Keogh remain as CEO of The Story Collective and join Fifth Season as senior VP, managing director, international scripted.
Fifth Season said Keogh will work in a strategic capacity across a range of international projects from its television studio and distribution divisions.
The acquisition bolsters Fifth Season’s UK content capabilities, where Ben Irving will continue to lead its own development and production slate in the UK as senior VP, creative director, international scripted.
He and Keogh will work together on continuing to build the studio’s UK and International production activities.
A consolidated senior leadership team, including The Story Collective’s Elouise West and Natasha Neill and Fifth Season’s Charlotte Bloxham, will now collaborate across both slates, leading on business affairs, finance and production, respectively, from Fifth Season’s London office. Keogh and Irving both report to Fifth Season CEO Graham Taylor.
The Story Collective was launched in 2021 under the name The Story Company by Keogh and Simon Vaughan, alongside Helen Jackson and Jonathan Norman, with Fifth Season’s backing.
Since then it has produced projects including A Thousand Blows, created by Steven Knight and starring Stephen Graham, for Disney+/Hulu. It has creative partnerships with Tom Davis’s and James de Frond’s Mighty Pebble Pictures and Ben Donald’s Cosmopolitan Pictures.
As part of the sale, Vaughan is leaving to start a new creative content studio, Storyworks, through which he and his team will build scripted productions from LA and London.
Storyworks will have a first look deal with Fifth Season and will work alongside The Story Collective on certain pre-existing projects.
Fifth Season’s current UK production slate includes work in development with Netflix, Sky, Channel 4, Starz and Amazon-owned Prime Video.
The Story Collective’s forthcoming projects, which will now sit under the Fifth Season’s UK studio arm, include shows in development at Apple TV, BBC, Sky, Netflix, Channel 4, BritBox and Sky Showtime.
Fifth Season is behind series such as Severance, His & Hers, Nine Perfect Strangers, Omnivore, and Tokyo Vice. The company is headquartered in LA, New York, and London, with offices worldwide. Its shareholders include CJ ENM, Toho and Endeavor.
Taylor said: “The Story Collective was built by Damian, Simon, and Helen on an ethos of creative collaboration, which we backed and have admired from its inception – and it feels like a natural evolution to be consolidating in this way four years later, as we double down on our ambitions as a UK studio. Fifth Season’s offering now has even greater firepower, and an undeniable nexus of talent connections and projects to put our weight behind.”
Keogh said: “We set the company up to partner with great creative talent and producers wholeheartedly and with a patient, nurturing, and supportive ethos. We really believe in the team sport of it all and are proud of the roster of people and projects we have assembled in our Collective.
“Fifth Season has always recognised and encouraged our approach, and it’s a natural and exciting next step to be joining forces, and I am looking forward to working more closely with Graham, Ben, and other Fifth Season colleagues.”
Vaughan said: “It is exciting to see The Story Collective being consolidated within Fifth Season to help deliver the scaled enterprise we all set out to build together when we formed the company four years ago. And also exciting for my new venture to be partnering with Fifth Season from the off – the projects on our combined slates are truly extraordinary and I sense that the best is yet to come.”
