Wednesday round-up: Latest news, deals & hires

FX, Disney extend Alien: Earth

Disney Entertainment Television and FX have extended their overall deal with Noah Hawley and extended drama series Alien: Earth.

The long-running creative partnership will see Hawley working on the second run of the series for FX, Hulu and Disney+, with filming set to begin in London next year.

The show is inspired by Sir Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller film Alien and was adapted by Hawley. David W. Zucker, president of Scott Free, is executive producer.

Fuel TV names North America chief 

US-based sports and culture firm Fuel TV has appointed Gene Pao as president and general manager in North America.

Pao will oversee all aspects of the business including content strategy and distribution, reporting into Fernando Figueiredo, Fuel’s chief exec.

Pao has worked at Disney and oversaw digital at Fuel TV more than a decade ago, and more recently had spells at Shout! Factory (now part of Radial Entertainment).

FuelTV is available in over 120 countries via pay-TV, connected-TV, and FAST platforms. It covers sports including surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, freeskiing, BMX, MTB and motocross.

OUTtv unveils five originals

LGBTQ+ streamer OUTtv has ordered five originals including dark comedy Sisters about a polygamist sect, music documentary Queer Country, and reality series Outspoken: Full Access Drag.

A Rebecca More-hosted talkshow, titled Best Sex Ever, and reality series Ultimate Boy’s Trip are also on the slate, alongside the sixth season of docuseries Pride.

Sisters has been created by and stars Brenna Jordan, with John Mark producing and directing, while Queer Country is from Colette Johnson-Vosberg and Firestarter Productions. Full Access Drag is part of the Outspoken docs strand, with Best Sex Ever and Ultimate Boy’s Trip from DaddyTV.

Global sales for Silverlining air crash docs

UK broker and distributor Silverlining Rights has sold its fast turnaround doc on the Air India tragedy to a raft of broadcasters around the world.

Air India Crash: What Went Wrong?, produced by Emporium Productions for Channel 4 in the UK, has been picked up by HRT (Croatia), RTBF (Belgium), TVP (Poland) following previous co-financing deals with Channel 4 (UK), Discovery (US), SBS (Australia), DR (Denmark), DPG (Belgium), CNN (Portugal), HOT8 (Israel), and Movistar (Spain).

Silverlining has also struck deals with the ABC (Australia), VRT (Belgium), and CBC/Radio-Canada for Murder in the Skies: Who Downed MH17?, a three-parter from Passion Pictures that aims to uncover what brought down a Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine in 2014. It was produced for National Geographic Channels International.