Elephant to adapt Buccaneer Media’s Marcella for TF1 following deal with Cineflix Rights

Elephant is to produce Rebecca—a French adaptation of the international hit thriller Marcella for TF1—in a deal with Cineflix Rights which also sees the distributor taking exclusive worldwide rights to the new series.

Hans Rosenfeldt’s Marcella was produced by Buccaneer Media and stars Anna Friel in a role which brought her an International Emmy® Award for outstanding performance. It has been a global success across 24 episodes. Season 3 is available now on Netflix and will premiere on ITV in the UK in Autumn 2020.

Rebecca is directed by Didier Le Pêcheur (Innocents), co-written by Le Pêcheur and Delphine Labouret (Innocents), and produced by Elephant (Gaëlle Cholet and Sandra Ouaiss).The eight-part series begins shooting this month around Paris.

In this fast-paced paranoid thriller, Anne Marivin (Ce soir je vais tuer l’assassin de mon fils) takes on the titular role. Six years after abandoning the hunt for a serial killer and quitting the police force, Rebecca decides to return to work to escape the depression eating away at her, which has distanced her from her husband (Benjamin Biolay) and her children.

During her investigations into a series of brutal murders, Rebecca becomes convinced that the killer is the same individual who had previously eluded her. But her attempts to track down the murderer are hampered by a series of blackouts and memory loss.  When one of the victims turns out to be her husband’s mistress, Rebecca is forced to question her own role in the killings and confront her past to discover the terrifying event that triggered her blackouts and may have led her to kill…

Other members of the acclaimed cast include Samir Guesmi (The Revenant), Valérie Karsenti (Household scenes), Gregory Montel (Call my agent), the humorist and actor Baptiste Lecaplain, Clotilde Courau, Patrick Timsit, Ophélia Kolb, Moussa Mansaly (Validé), Salim Kechiouche, and Pauline Cheviller (Balthazar).

James Durie, Head of Scripted, Cineflix Rights said: “Marcella has been a huge success in the UK and internationally – a testimony to the strength of the characters and story created by Hans Rosenfeldt, Nicola Larder and Buccaneer Media. We’re all really looking forward to seeing how the creative team at Elephant develop Rebecca for French viewers and – through our distribution deal –a global audience.”

Sandra Ouaiss, Managing Director, Elephant International and co-producer of the French remake along with Gaëlle Cholet, Managing Director, Elephant Story said: “We are very excited to work on the French adaptation of this acclaimed, female-led crime drama, now named Rebecca, as we team up with TF1 and Cineflix Rights. In this French remake, we are diving even deeper into Rebecca’s personal journey, turning the first two seasons into one, to bring another edge to this heroine.”

Anne Viau, Artistic Director of French Drama at TF1 added: “We were immediately seduced by the character of Rebecca, which is both extremely endearing, but also mysterious and complex. The role offers a terrific range for an actress like Anne Marivin. All the ingredients of an addictive ‘thriller noir’ are there to seduce our audience!”

The deal with Elephant was brokered for Cineflix Rights by Julien Leroux and Sabrina Ayala, SVP, Sales, France, Italy, Iberia, and Latin America. A Buccaneer Media production for ITV and Netflix, Marcella was created by Hans Rosenfeldt (The Bridge) with Nicola Larder (The Tunnel), and executive produced by Tony Wood. Cineflix Rights has exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the format and finished series.

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For more information, contact Mark Ogle at OH Communications (for Cineflix Rights): mark@ohcommunications.co.uk / +44 (0) 7789 981561

About Cineflix Rights
Cineflix Rights is the UK’s largest independent TV content distributor, providing premium programming from leading international producers to more than 500 broadcasters and platforms worldwide. Our diverse catalogue spans the full range of factual genres, as well as scripted series and formats. Established in 2002, Cineflix Rights is based in London and part of the Cineflix Media group of companies.

About Elephant
Elephant is a leading French Production Company created in 1999 by Emmanuel Chain and Thierry Bizot, with production labels covering local and international drama, documentary, magazine shows, entertainment, factual entertainment, live events and branded content. Elephant STORY (directed by Gaëlle Cholet and Guillaume Renouil,) has launched multiple successful series including Desperate Parents (France 2), The Intern (France 3), Killer by the Lake (TF1), and WorkinGirls (Canal +), among many others. Elephant INTERNATIONAL, created in 2019 (directed by Sandra Ouaiss) focuses on international dramas, co-productions and English-speaking content, with a slate of bold scripted projects in development. Elephant aspires to tell compelling and entertaining stories.

ABOUT THE TF1 GROUP           
The TF1 Group is a major player in the production, publication and distribution of content. 
Our ambition is to use our content to positively inspire society. Our operations are organized around the following complementary divisions:

• Broadcast with 5 free-to-air channels (TF1, TMC, TFX, TF1 Séries Films, LCI), 4 theme channels (Ushuaia TV, Histoire TV, TV Breizh, Série Club), 3 on-demand content platforms (MYTF1, MYTF1VOD, TFOU MAX), and the TF1 PUB advertising airtime sales house. 
• Production via Newen, home to 9 studios in France and around the world.
• Digital via Unify, home to our web natives activities and to high-powered digital communities including aufeminin, Marmiton, Doctissimo and My Little Paris.
• Music via Muzeek One, home to our music and live shows business.

The TF1 Group has operations in 10 countries and nearly 3,200 employees, and generated revenue of €2,337.3 million in 2019. (Euronext Paris: ISIN FR0000054900).