Comcast’s Sky recently showed its desire to grow via an acquisition, agreeing to acquire ITV’s networks and streaming businesses in a $2.13 billion deal. But the company has also been growing its investment in original content in recent years to ensure it can regularly premiere attractive series and films for its subscribers in a competitive industry where streamers and traditional players constantly tout new and returning programming.Sky has been betting on series that it feels can break through in this environment. Case in point: the upcoming October premiere of legal drama War, whose first of two seasons, ordered together with HBO, stars Sienna Miller and Dominic West. Or how about season 2 of Sweetpea, the dark comedy starring Ella Purnell (Fallout, Yellowjackets) as a wallflower-turned-killer, which returns to Sky in November, before partner Starz airs it next year. Sky audiences have this year already been able to watch the likes of Possession, the limited inheritance mystery series led by Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki), and Prisoner, the high-speed action series starring Izuka Hoyle, which has been renewed for a second season.
Plus, early this year, Sky had success with the Rafe Spall-starring Under Salt Marsh and it has unveiled an eight-episode “bold and contemporary reimagining [that] brings The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo into the present, grounded in the characters and investigative DNA of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium novels, with themes that carry heightened relevance today.”
