Quibi lines up Varsity Blues series

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s shortform video venture Quibi is continuing to grow its slate of original content, with a new take on the film Varsity Blues in the works.

Jeffrey Katzenberg

The 1999 movie is being developed as a series for the forthcoming streaming service, which is due to launch in April 2020.

Writer Tripper Clancy and director Anne Fletcher are behind the small-screen incarnation, which will come from Peter Guber and Mike Tollin’s MSM and Paramount Television.

Maia Glickman is overseeing the project for MSM and Tova Laiter executive producing alongside Tollin and John Gatins.

The feature film followed a small-town high school football team and their overbearing coach through a tumultuous season.

“For all those who cheered Mox’s refrain, ‘I don’t want your life,’ as well as all those who never heard of the West Canaan Coyotes, we’re thrilled to bring Varsity Blues to Quibi and into the 21st century!,” said Tollin.

LA-based Quibi, led by former eBay and Hewlett Packard exec Meg Whitman as CEO, has been staffing up and commissioning content ready for launch, with a content budget for its first year reportedly in the region of US$1bn.

This will also include a psychological thriller from UK-based Bodyguard producer World Productions, based on Harriet Tyce’s novel Blood Orange.

The novel follows a criminal barrister taking on her first murder case and the project marks the first UK-originated scripted development for Quibi.

Earlier this month, UK-based BBC Studios received its first order from the start-up service. Its Natural History Unit is working on Fierce Queens (working title), a blue-chip series exploring nature’s phenomenal females.

BBC Studios is also one of the latest TV companies to invest in Quibi, which also counts ITV, Disney, Entertainment One, Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Viacom and Warner Media among its investors.