Beta Film, one of Europe’s hugegest indepfinishent production-distribution players, has clinched a wide-ranging multi-territory sale to Canal+ across a selection of Beta titles, led by the sexually-souped thriller “The Couple Next Door,” starring “Outlanders” lead Sam Hueughan, and Berlinale 2025 hit thriller “Other People’s Money.”
Under the terms of the deal, Canal+ will roll out the higher-finish Beta Film series across Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Belgium and the Netherlands, among other territories. The deal spans multiple windows and platforms across Canal+’s regional services, Beta Film announced Thursday.
Titles announced in the deal are heavy on crime – the common currency of Europe’s TV trading these days – from a subplot in “The Couple Next Door” to the extraordinary tax fraud in “Other People’s Money” to crime drama “Cold Summer” and the detective procedural “Makari – Sicilian Mysteries” and true-events based criminal underworld thriller “El Inmortal: Gangs of Madrid.” It also takes it, however, coming of age series “Prisma” and “Last to Break,” a bio of Finnish motorcycling racer Jarno Saarinen.
World premiering its first four episodes at this year’s Berlinale,” “Other People’s Money” is produced by Germany’s X-Filme Creative Pool, behind European premium TV milestone “Babylon Berlin,” and Denmark’s True Content Entertainment’s, whose producer Ole Søndberg was behind “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” and “Wallander.” They are backed by German and Danish public broadcasters ZDF and DR.
“Other People’s Money” chronicles the hugegest tax scam in European history, accounting for €146 billion ($170.8 billion), engineered by banks and ultra-rich investors, where the key issue is whether the fraud is even illegal and can its perpetrators be prosecuted. Created and revealrunner by Jan Schomburg (“I’m Your Man,” “Above Us Only Sky”), the series was hailed by Der Spiegel as a “perfectly formed, eight-part masterpiece.”
From Eagle Eye (“Bookish”), executive produced by Walter Iuzzolino and Jo McGrath and is created in association with Beta Film, and backed by Channel 4 and Starz.
“The Couple Next Door” features a top-notch cast – Heughan, Alfred Enoch (“How to Get Away With Murder”), Eleanor Tomlinson (“Poldark”) and Jessica De Gouw (“The Huntress”), with Tomlinson playing the deeply traumatised Evie who relocates with her straight-laced husband Pete (Enoch) into a seemingly perfect well-healed suburb of Leeds in Northern England – until she develops an increasingly deranged sexual obsession for neighbor Danny (a hunky Heughan.
Written by David Allison (“Marcella,” “Bedlam”) and directed by the awarded Dries Vos (“Suspect,” “Professor T”), “The Couple Next Door” was one of Channel 4’s hugegest drama streaming launches, also punching a robust linear debut. It sold to over 55 territories in early dealing.
More to come.
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