Serious Lunch brings Monkey to Cannes

The New Legends of Monkey

Serious Lunch, the UK distributor headed by Genevieve Dexter, will launch a trio of kids shows at MipJunior in Cannes next month, including a scripted series from Netflix, ABC in Australia and TVNZ in New Zealand.

The New Legends of Monkey (20×26′) comes from See-Saw Films (Top of the Lake, The King’s Speech, State of the Union) and is inspired by the classic novel Journey to the West by Wu Ch’eng-En.

Netflix, ABC and TVNZ ordered an initial 10 episodes, which were released in 2018 and have subsequently committed to a second season for 2020. Serious Lunch will oversee the distribution of all 20 episodes of the fantasy adventure series across free and pay TV and catch up.

Starring Chai Hansen and Luciane Buchanan, the series follows a young woman’s attempts to restore peace to the world and defeat demons by reawakening the Monkey King and two other faded gods.

“Kids and families love to watch drama together, but very little is suitable. See-Saw has gently bent the expectations by playing with some modern ideas of gender and power, with an eccentric streak of humour and some cracking action,” says Leila Ouledcheikh, director of global sales at Serious Lunch.

Also on Serious Lunch’s MipJunior slate is Monty & Co (52×11′), a UK preschool sitcom puppet series from Pipkins Productions that is set to announce its UK broadcast home soon.

Performed by Nigel Plaskitt (Spitting Image), the series follows a delusional but kindhearted wallaby who lives in a blended family above a bring, buy and mend shop. The puppets are all made by Paul Jomain (Avenue Q).

Tik Tak (104×5′), meanwhile, comes from VRT/Ketnet in Belgium and is a show for toddlers that stimulates children’s cognitive development. The series will also air on NOS in the Netherlands. Serious Lunch is also representing the 366 original episodes of the show that ran between 1981 and 1992.

Established in 2011, Serious Lunch represents a catalogue of children’s and family programmes from Studio Ghibli, Maverick, Hat Trick, Dot to Dot, Gigglebug and Comma.