HBO Max, the new direct to consumer offering from WarnerMedia, has entered into a two year first-look overall deal with showrunner and executive producer Sam Dean (Love Is Blind).
In addition to Dean’s future assignments as showrunner for HBO MAX projects, her deal includes first-look rights on all her owned or controlled concepts for her unscripted programming for all platforms. She recently wrapped production as showrunner for the upcoming HBO Max unscripted series 12 Dates of Christmas, which will debut later this year.
“Sam is an outstanding unscripted storyteller and a top-tier showrunner,” said Jennifer O’Connell, executive VP of original non-fiction and kids programming. “After working with Sam on our reality rom-com, 12 Dates of Christmas, it was clear that her ability to tell stories with heart, humor, and a wink to the audience made her a perfect fit for HBO Max.”
Dean stated, “I am really looking forward to working with HBO Max; it’s a new and ambitious platform with an unlimited appetite to create fresh and innovative content, yet it also brings with it Warner Media’s history of excellence that has continually kept them at the forefront of creativity and storytelling. It’s a great time to get involved as an unscripted producer. I feel blessed to be joining an incredibly strong and talented team, who I admire greatly and have loved collaborating with on 12 Dates of Christmas.”
Dean has produced on internationally renowned formats and franchises across a variety of unscripted genres, including social experiments, dating and competition formats. Just prior to joining HBO Max, Dean was an EP at Kinetic Content, where she specialized in show running new formats, such as Netflix’s breakout hit Love Is Blind, ABC’s The Taste and multiple series of Married and First Sight and various spin-off shows within that franchise.
Dean is represented by Alex Davis, Esq. from TheHollywoodLawyer.com
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More