Canada’s Crave Pre-Buys British Crime Drama Series ‘Dope Girls’
EXCLUSIVE: Canadian streamer Crave has acquired BBC drama Dope Girls.
The Bad Wolf-produced series was one of the buzziest at the recent LA Screenings, where a full episode was on show, and Bell Media-owned streamer Crave has now swooped to take local rights from distributor Sony Pictures Television.
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It will be unveiled as part of Bell’s Upfront in a few minutes, we hear, along with other U.S. and international acquisitions and a swathe of original and returning programs for Crave, CTV and Bell’s other English- and French-language networks.
Revealed by Deadline last year, Dope Girls delves into the history of the inter-war Soho criminal underworld and is inspired by Marek Kohn’s Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground non-fiction book.Set in the early 20th century, it follows a time when female gangs ran the clubs, drugs and moonshine distribution. It will launch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK, and comes from Polly Stenham (The Face, The Neon Demon) and Alex Warren (Eleanor).
The show has been gestating since 2018, when Bad Wold co-founder Tranter met Stenham about a different project but was amazed when she heard about how the Soho nightclub scene had boomed in the 1920s, with 150 such clubs operating during the almost prohibition-like period. Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) and Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects) are leading the cast. Umi Myers, Eilidh Fisher and Geraldine James also have key roles.
“Dope Girls is a great streaming title,” said Justin Stockman, Bell Media’s VP, Content Development & Programming, who oversees all English-language programming for the Canadian networks giant.
Bad Wolf adopted a U.S.-style pilot strategy on Dope Girls by finishing episode one months before the rest of the show so that could be shopped at the London and LA TV Screenings. Jane Tranter, who co-runs the Doctor Who and His Dark Materials producer, told Deadline at the time this was a first for the Sony-backed indie and was driven by the necessities of the current drama market.
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