PARIS – NBC has acquired U.S. broadcast rights to the first season of “Taxi Brooklyn,” the New York-set action/comedy skein produced by Europacorp Television, the TV arm of Luc Besson’s outfit.
The English-language show – which comprises 12 episodes — is based on Besson’s hit movie franchise “Taxi,” which grossed $126 million worldwide. It stars Chyler Leigh (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Jacky Ido (“Inglourious Basterds”), James Colby (“Person of Interest”), Jose Zuniga (“Body of Proof”), Jennifer Esposito (“Spin City”), Bill Heck (“Pan Am”), Ally Walker (“Profiler”), and Raul Casso (“Blue Bloods”).
Series is exec produced by Gary Scott Thompson (“Las Vegas”, “The Fast and The Furious”) who also served as showrunner.
Olivier Megaton (“Taken”), Frederic Berthe, Alain Tasma, David Morley and Gerard Krawczyk directed episodes of the series.
“We felt NBC was the perfect home for our show,” says Edouard De Vesinne, producer and co-topper of EuropaCorp Television. “I hope the American audience will fall in love with the duo formed by our fearless Cat and our charming Marseille born Leo. Cat and Leo argue and disagree on almost everything while pursuing criminal cases. The pilot gets off to a flying start and I hope the audience will feel at home with this dynamic and amusing team.”
Gary Scott Thompson said that “after over a hundred episodes of ‘Las Vegas’ on NBC, and ‘The Fast And Furious’ at Universal, it’s a happy home coming for me. I’m very pleased NBC recognized our show’s potential, and I look forward to working with them on ‘Taxi Brooklyn.’”
EuropaCorp will handle international sales and will shop the series at MipTV, which kicks off April 6.
France’s top commercial network, TF1, will bow the show in France on April 14.
The English-language show – which comprises 12 episodes — is based on Besson’s hit movie franchise “Taxi,” which grossed $126 million worldwide. It stars Chyler Leigh (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Jacky Ido (“Inglourious Basterds”), James Colby (“Person of Interest”), Jose Zuniga (“Body of Proof”), Jennifer Esposito (“Spin City”), Bill Heck (“Pan Am”), Ally Walker (“Profiler”), and Raul Casso (“Blue Bloods”).
Series is exec produced by Gary Scott Thompson (“Las Vegas”, “The Fast and The Furious”) who also served as showrunner.
Olivier Megaton (“Taken”), Frederic Berthe, Alain Tasma, David Morley and Gerard Krawczyk directed episodes of the series.
“We felt NBC was the perfect home for our show,” says Edouard De Vesinne, producer and co-topper of EuropaCorp Television. “I hope the American audience will fall in love with the duo formed by our fearless Cat and our charming Marseille born Leo. Cat and Leo argue and disagree on almost everything while pursuing criminal cases. The pilot gets off to a flying start and I hope the audience will feel at home with this dynamic and amusing team.”
Gary Scott Thompson said that “after over a hundred episodes of ‘Las Vegas’ on NBC, and ‘The Fast And Furious’ at Universal, it’s a happy home coming for me. I’m very pleased NBC recognized our show’s potential, and I look forward to working with them on ‘Taxi Brooklyn.’”
EuropaCorp will handle international sales and will shop the series at MipTV, which kicks off April 6.
France’s top commercial network, TF1, will bow the show in France on April 14.
Source:
Holy crap. NBC? I expected a cable network to pick this up. They're going to have to edit the crap out of this show (for time and content) to put it on a broadcast network. From what I understand, the average episode will be about 10 minutes longer than a typical broadcast episode would be.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. Maybe the can run it for 90 mins including ads?
ReplyDeleteThat would be preferable but I have my doubts NBC would do that. I'm "acquiring" episode 1 as we speak to see just how long the premiere episode is and what content they may have to cut. I'm just hoping it's subtitled and not dubbed because I won't be able to tell much otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAcquiring, lol.
ReplyDeleteIt's in English.
I'm hoping so. I just saw an ad for the French broadcast where all the English parts were dubbed in French.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I just watched a promo on TF1's website and it's in French s I couldn't understand a thing.
ReplyDeleteJust skimmed the episode. The whole thing was dubbed into French so I couldn't tell if there would be any language edits but the episode runs a bit over 49 minutes meaning they'll likely have to shave 7 minutes off. Hopefully they'll make the unedited episodes available online.
ReplyDeleteIt's common for TF1 to offer dubbed and subtitled versions of foreign TV shows, but ads are always in French. Besides, I just watched a trailer too and it seems entirely set in Brooklyn, and the cab driver is the only French character in the main cast, so I assume he'll talk in English.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that this trailer killed a few more of my brain cells. The movies were dumb as rocks (the first two were somewhat enjoyable though) and this show seems even worse. The way the cop ended up needing the help of the cab driver in the original movie didn't seem as forced as it appears to be here.
Luc Besson is such a lazy guy. He can do great things when he's trying (usually when he directs himself) and he has had so many ambitious films in the works (but they never get made)... But with his company and his lame scripts, he's a total sellout more interested in producing a product (Taxi Brooklyn is such a paint-by-the-numbers idea created to be sold internationally) rather than doing creative work.
There's not an ounce of originality in this thing, but then that's why it's on TF1.
Hmm, I expected better from Chyler Leigh, based on your comments.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't it have any scenes that would likely not air in NBC?
ReplyDeleteThere's no excessive and/or gory violence and no nudity.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I guess howNBC will manage to cut off to fit it in an hour including ads.
ReplyDeleteSummer shows are never award winners and there are plenty of shows people like that are unoriginal and dumb as rocks. It should fit in well at a network like NBC where you can count the number of truly good shows they broadcast on one hand.
ReplyDeleteNot every show needs to be an award winner, I know, I like Banshee and Strike Back, but I don't consider them to be time-wasters, they're a reason I watch them (or everything I choose to watch, really) and it's because they successfully deliver on the fun they promise.
ReplyDeleteBut Taxi Brooklyn is coming from TF1 and it's a Besson production (over the past decade he has produced so many dumb action films, and not the good kind of dumb) with an unoriginal premise (that I personally grew tired from after the second film), chances are it'll be like The Transporter series, an unwatchable mess. I'd be happy to be proven wrong (but it just won't happen).
Almost all shows are time-wasters. It's the premise of the entire medium. I didn't say anything about settling for an unwatchable show.
ReplyDeleteI associate time wasting with regret. If I regret watching a show, then time was wasted. But the time I allot to watching TV shows isn't necessarily wasted just because I'm not doing anything productive by sitting there.
ReplyDeleteAnd i know you didn't say anything about it being unwatchable, it's just me speculating on how bad it will be. Maybe it will not be a complete failure, but shows created on the grounds this was is created on (adaptation of a tired formula that got old real fast in theaters, French show done in English so they can get more international $$$) don't give me much hope.
Then swap out the term 'time-waster' with 'time-killer.' Anyway, the bar isn't set very high for US broadcast network summer TV and, even if the show is mind-numbing and unoriginal, this is the sort of light, blue sky, popcorn TV that people gravitate toward at that time of year. Just ask the USA Network. They built their entire programming slate around it for the better part of a decade.
ReplyDeleteI have already seen 3 episodes aired in french on belgian TV, different landscapes from what we usually see in other tv shows from NY, great acting from leigh 180 degrees different from GA and Ally Wallker as her mother amazing, but basic cops stuff (no tracking phone, minimun scientific stuff...)
ReplyDeleteAh, I keep forgetting Ally Walker is in this. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteHonestly only 2 words registered in this article...Chyler Leigh. I loved her turn as Lexie Grey on Grey's Anatomy...will watch anything with Chyler in it.
ReplyDeleteit sucks, i didn't stand 10 minutes of this show (aired in France, I'm french ) ...boring . The french success of the "taxi" movies in France was fun and typical characters , there's nothing left here. Just another lambda show
ReplyDelete