Fox International Channels has acquired first run pay-TV rights to René Balcer‘s upcoming crime series Jo in more than 120 territories. The English-language series, formerly titled Le Grand, stars Jean Reno as a veteran detective in Paris’ elite Criminal Brigade who stops at nothing to solve the most challenging murder cases. Also starring are Jill Hennessy, The Borgias‘ Tom Austen and newcomer Heida Reed. The hourlong drama is from Atlantique
Productions with Red Arrow International handling sales. FIC has picked up the series in territories that include Latin America, Africa, Italy, Korea, Russia, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Poland and Turkey. Law & Order vet Balcer is showrunner and exec producer. Also writing and producing are co-creators Franck Ollivier and Malina Detcheva. Directors include Charlotte Sieling and Kristoffer Nyholm, both helmers of the original Danish version of The Killing, Stefan Schwartz (Dexter) and Sheree Folkson (Hit And Miss).


I think you’ll see a lot more of this in the future. Just like it has been forever in book fiction, there’s nothing that says that an English language series has to take place English speaking countries. BBC’s Wallander series was a huge hit and this sounds like a great premise as well. I bet there must be loads of people who want to see escapism entertainment from somewhere they’ve never been.
Wow! A cop who’ll stop at nothing to solve the most challenging cases! Did the “creators” come up with this all by theirself? Although we shouldn’t be surprised to see this kind of work from Malina Detcheva (SoeurTherese.com and Profilage: genius!) and Rene Balcer (Law and Order, Law and Order, Law and Order, Law and etc…). No wonder the int’l market is booming: with cutting edge ideas like “Jo” coming out of Europe, the US is going to be left in the dust! C’mon, Dick Wolf! Let’s go, team Lenkov! Time to put the thinking caps on!
Bitter much?
Where does it say Dick Wolf in this? He has nothing to do with this.
Don’t bother, it’s not very good.