Broadening horizons.
Just over a year on from its launch, Anthony Kimble’s London-based coproduction and finance agency Fugitive is expanding into distribution and formats, while adjusting to cope with the Covid-19 crisis. Clive Whittingham reports.
It’s a scary, unprecedented time for businesses everywhere, but one UK company has been pressing ahead with expansion plans in the past fortnight despite the ongoing coronavirus lockdown and widespread freezing of the content industry.
Fugitive, the London-based coproduction and finance agency established by Cineflix alum Anthony Kimble at the beginning of 2019, is moving into distribution and format sales for the first time.
Last week, it picked up the 40×30’ finished-tape and remake rights to Mom vs Matchmaker, produced by Go Button Media for Canada’s OutTV. The show sees celebrity matchmaker Carmelia Ray compete with a mother in each episode to see who can find the best date for the mum’s son or daughter.
Merrily Ross, Fugitive’s exec VP of non-scripted content, tells C21: “I really like the neatness of the format. It’s very simple and it works for a broad audience: you can skew it very young, or a bit older; you can use a host who’s part of the channel, or an actual matchmaker.
“It’s a lot of fun, easy to produce, high volume and quick turnaround. There are a lot of channels, cable and secondary cable, looking for something like this, plus we have the finished tape, so it’s a good package.”