Yahoo News Fremantle Banner Signs First-Look Deal With ‘August: Osage County’ Producer Patrick Daly’s Caledonia
Caledonia Productions, the banner of Patrick Daly, the theater and film director whose feature credits include August: Osage County, UNA and Galveston, has signed a first-look deal with Passenger, headed by its founder Richard Brown (This England, True Detective, Catch-22).
The two-year deal with Passenger, which now sits within Fremantle’s Global Drama division, will see Daly and Brown collaborate on select existing Passenger and Caledonia film and television projects in addition to building a new slate of projects to co-produce. Fremantle will handle global distribution.
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Both Passenger and Caledonia are based in New York and London.
“I have known and admired, Richard Brown and Fremantle’s Christian Vesper for many years, so when this partnership opportunity arose, it really was an easy decision to make,” said Daly, whose 15 years’ experience in producing theatre in the U.S. and U.K. has included productions of Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica, Katori Hall’s Olivier Award-winning The Mountaintop, Nina Raine’s Tribes and Lucy Prebble’s The Effect.
“As we continue to bring bold and original work to the stage, we will be looking to do the same for the screen. The expertise, support and global infrastructure from this deal provides Caledonia with the springboard to do just that, and we eagerly look forward to seeing what we will cook up together.”
Upcoming projects from Caledonia include the feature film Marshall Street, currently in development with Film4 and to be directed by Nadia Latif. Meanwhile, the eight-part comedy series SHRINK, developed and executive produced by Daly, is currently streaming on Peacock.
“I’ve been keen to collaborate with Patrick for a long time, he’s a highly talented producer with excellent taste and invaluable creative instincts,” said Brown. “Now that Fremantle has become Passenger’s permanent home, we’ve been looking for exciting opportunities to ramp up and expand our capacity to produce a growing number of quality film and TV projects. This deal with Patrick and Caledonia is a major step towards achieving that goal.”
Separate to the first look deal with Passenger, Daly will continue his live theatrical stage work as a producing consultant overseeing the live division of EON Productions. Recent EON credits include the Broadway production of Macbeth (starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga), and the stage musical Sing Street adapted from the John Carney film.
In December 2022, Fremantle announced the acquisition of Passenger, with the independent production company becoming a fully-owned label. As part of the deal, Brown has also taken on a new creative role across Global Drama to help drive Fremantle’s efforts in the development and production of high-calibre TV and film projects. A recent example includes a collaboration on Michael Winterbottom’s new drama series Fall of the God of Cars, which tells the incredible story of Carlos Ghosn, the Brazilian-Lebanese CEO of Nissan and Renault, who was arrested in Japan and one year later orchestrated his own escape to Beirut, hidden in a music case on a private jet.
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