Paramount+ has announced it has picked up U.S. and select regional rights to three British series produced by A24: It Gets Worse, Major Players and The Ministry of Time.
Created and executive produced by star Leo Reich, It Gets Worse is, per the official description, “A show about three young people who are starting to look around themselves — at their humiliating jobs, their non-existent love lives and their rapidly dwindling will to live — and think: ‘wait. Wait WAIT. Surely it gets better than this? It has to get better than this. Right? Spoiler alert! It doesn’t.’” Emily Fairn, Olive Gray, Sean Delaney, Dane Williams, India Mullen and John Tothill lead the ensemble, with Andrew Scott, Lena Dunham and Amelia Dimoldenberg appearing in supporting roles. Branded as a Showtime original series premieres in early November on Paramount+.
Major Players is an original drama co-written by Molly Manning Walker and Yasmin Joseph, following two teenage girls as they set out to launch a women’s soccer team. The description reads, “Inspired by Molly’s own experiences at high school where crowd control was more urgent than education, the series is a love letter to soccer and a funny, wild exploration of young people in London today.”
The Ministry of Time, adapted by Alice Birch from Kaliane Bradley’s bestselling novel, follows, according the official description, “our heroine Sophy” as she “achieves a hard-fought promotion in the civil service, only to learn that her role is to help a time traveller acclimatise to the modern world as part of a top secret Ministry program. Commander Graham Gore is a Victorian polar explorer and one of several expats from history who are now part of the Ministry’s extraordinary experiment. The professional friendship between Sophy and Graham develops into an intense forbidden romance just as the sinister nature of the Ministry’s true intentions increasingly puts them in danger.” Aoife Hinds stars as Sophy, alongside Billy Howle as Commander Graham Gore, Hong Chau as Adela, Adeel Akhtar as Quentin Ackerly and Tamara Lawrance as Simellia. Emily Fairn, Josh Finan, Aisling Loftus, Tawfeek Barhom, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Ciarán Hinds and Hélène Patarot also star. Aneil Karia directs and executive produces.
Jane Wiseman, head of originals at Paramount+, said, “For over a decade, A24 has produced some of the most exhilarating and thought-provoking independent series and films. As we continue to bolster the service’s original content offering, both through internal productions and external partnerships, we immediately knew these three A24 series from across the pond would strengthen Paramount+’s reputation as the leading destination for inventive, compelling stories.”
This news follows several other Paramount+ greenlights this year, among them Ascent starring Viola Davis, Trauma led by Richard Madden, the Clueless sequel series with Alicia Silverstone returning, Laird led by Kenneth Branagh, Fear Not starring Anne Hathaway, and the now-in-production Discretion starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning and The Best of Us starring Jeremy Strong.
Featured image photo credit: Photo: A24
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