via https://deadline.com

Article by Peter White

January 29, 2020

Canada’s CTV has ordered a comedy from Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother exec producer Chuck Tatham and Schitt’s Creek writer Kurt Smeaton.

The broadcaster has commissioned Children Ruin Everything from Letterkenny producer New Metric Media. The series has been in development since 2016 and is set to start production in spring 2020. Casting is underway.

The half-hour comedy about living with children follows Astrid and James, who struggle to find a balance between being mom and dad to two kids and being who they were before offspring. It explores the ways kids can tear down your life and, if you’re lucky, replace it with something you have to admit is pretty okay, too.

Smeaton and Tatham will also serve as Executive Producers alongside New Metric Media founder Mark Montefiore. Beth Iley (Killjoys) serves as producer.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Pam Wilson
818.495.3800
Pam.Wilson@inkmediacorp.com

via https://www.newyorker.com/

August 7, 2019

“The TV-show epigram offers a delicious sense of narrative infinity: think of “There are eight million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them,” which closed every episode of the mid-century police drama “Naked City,” or “These are their stories,” the iconic kickoff to “Law & Order.” The exquisitely weird Canadian sitcom “Letterkenny” patches together those two pronouncements to craft its own self-perpetuating statement of purpose: “There are 5000 people in Letterkenny,” the screen reads at the start of each episode. “These are their problems.”

The New Yorker Recommends: Letterkenny… and so do we.

Read full article here.

July 24th, 2019 via hollywoodreporter.com

New Metric Media teams up with Chuck Tatham, Executive Producer of ‘Modern Family’ and ‘Arrested Development’, to produce new sitcom ‘Children Ruin Everything’ created by Kurt Smeaton.

Read full article here.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Pam Wilson
818.495.3800
Pam.Wilson@inkmediacorp.com

CAST OF THE HIT HULU SERIES “LETTERKENNY” COMING TO AMERICA FOR FIRST-EVER “LETTERKENNY LIVE!”

STARRING JARED KEESO, NATHAN DALES, MICHELLE MYLETT, K. TREVOR WILSON AND MARK FORWARD

FEATURING NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN SKETCHES & VIDEO, STAND-UP BY FORWARD AND WILSON

“LETTERKENNY LIVE!” TOUR BROUGHT TO YOU BY PUPPERS PREMIUM LAGER

Los Angeles, CA (April 12, 2019) – Due to popular demand since its U.S. debut on Hulu, cast of the award-winning comedy series “Letterkenny” are bringing “LETTERKENNY LIVE!” tour for the first time ever south of the border for select engagements to American fans. Starring Jared Keeso (Wayne), Nathan Dales (Daryl), Michelle Mylett (Katy), K. Trevor Wilson (Dan) and Mark Forward (Coach), the 90-minute comedy experience presented by Puppers Premium Lager, will feature never-before-seen sketches and video performed by the cast, as well as original stand-up sets from Wilson and Forward.

Presale tickets for the newly added shows will be available as follows:
• Letterkenny / Hulu Presale – Monday April 15th 10:00am – 10:00pm EST
• Radio Presale – Tuesday April 16th 10:00am – 10pm EST
• Venue Presale – Tuesday April 16th 10:00am – 10pm EST
• Promoter Presale – Tuesday April 16th 10:00am – 10pm EST

All presales will run until Thursday April 18 at 10pm EST.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday April 19th at 10:00am EST.

LETTERKENNY LIVE! Tour Dates:
[Thursday, June 20th] – New York City, NY – Playstation Theatre
[Saturday, June 22nd] – Minneapolis, MN – Pantages Theatre
[Sunday June 23rd] – Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre

Exclusively available for streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Crave in Canada, LETTERKENNY revolves around the dustups Wayne (Keeso) and his pals get into with their small-town rivals. For the hicks, skids and hockey players of Letterkenny, getting your ass kicked is a legitimate concern on a day-to-day basis. Since debuting on Hulu last year, the series quickly garnered critical recognition:

The Hollywood Reporter – “a highly stylized bit of brilliance,” “relentlessly creative”

The New York Times – “has a quiet sweetheart streak, even when it’s shockingly filthy,” “binge judiciously”

Rolling Stone – “wonderfully weird Canadian comedy,” “spoke in the only dialect I needed to hear: funny,” “this oddball show offers big laughs”

Created by Keeso who is also executive producer, co-writer and star, LETTERKENNY is produced by New Metric Media, in partnership with DHX Media and Playfun Games in association with Bell Media, with the participation of Canadian Media Fund, OMDC Tax Credits and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund. Jacob Tierney is executive producer, director, and co-writer and Mark Montefiore is executive producer for New Metric Media.

For more information on “LETTERKENNY LIVE!” or to purchase tickets please visit:

www.letterkenny.tv
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Twitter

About New Metric Media
Founded in 2013 and led by President Mark Montefiore, New Metric Media is an independent production company that develops, finances and produces premium scripted content for a global audience. Winner of the Banff World Media Festival’s 2018 Innovative Producer Award, the company’s current slate of programming includes the multiple award-winning Hulu/Crave hit original comedy Letterkenny, the half-hour Superchannel comedy What Would Sal Do?, and the Netflix/Citytv compelling drama series Bad Blood.

New Metric Media is also recognized as a leader in brand marketing for its success with Letterkenny and Bad Blood’s off-screen extensions including beers and spirits, collectible merchandise, a branded escape room activation with a national immersive entertainment franchise featuring Bad Blood, and Letterkenny LIVE!, a national theatre tour with the stars of the series.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Pam Wilson
818.495.3800
Pam.Wilson@inkmediacorp.com

New Metric Media, the Canadian production company behind hit Hulu comedy Letterkenny, is set to launch an U.S. division and has set up a trio of projects that it will take out to networks and streaming services.

The company, which is also behind mob drama Bad Blood, is launching an LA office later this year with founder and President Mark Montefiore heading up the unit.

It is developing a Nashville-set drama based on criminologist Dr. Michael Arntfield’s book Monster City and a series of crime thrillers based on the books of Peter Edwards, who wrote Bad Blood: The End of Honour, as well as Nobody Cares, a comedy about anxiety in an online world from Canadian writer Anne T. Donahue.

Monster City follows the true account of a number of serial killers, who terrorized Nashville’s music scene for over three decades. It focuses on the cold-case Murder Squad determined to bring an end to the sadistic killing sprees of The Motel Killer, The Fast Food Killer and The Rest Stop Killer. Arntfield is attached to consult on the project, which is based on his Little A-published book.

New Metric Media has optioned a number of Edwards’ books and hopes to create a “universe” of TV shows. Books included in the deal are biker stories Unrepentant: The Strange and (Sometimes) Terrible Life of Lorne Campbell, Satan’s Choice and Hells Angels Biker and The Bandido Massacre: A True Story of Bikers, Brotherhood, and Betrayal as well as The Wolfpack, about the Canadian gang, which will be published by Penguin Random House this year. Montefiore called Edwards a “vault of crime information”.

Nobody Cares is a frank, funny personal essay collection by Donahue. The memoir about work, failure, friendship, and the messy business of being alive in your twenties and thirties also tackles the subject of mental health. The book, which is published by ECW Publishing, is now being developed as a comedy. Montefiore said that it is a “millennial” story. “It’s a bit YA to early 20s. It’s about the coping mechanisms of dealing with today’s society and the pressures of social media and the expectations put on everybody. Anne’s voice is unique but accessible.”

Montefiore launched New Metric Media after producing feature film Cas & Dylan, which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany and was directed by Jason Priestley. He told Deadline that the company was set up to produce premium scripted drama and comedy. The company’s first big hit was Letterkenny, a comedy set in a small rural Canadian community featuring hicks, skids and hockey players. Montefiore picked up the rights to the project after it began as a series of YouTube videos and subsequently adapted it for television with Bell Media’s digital platform CraveTV. After its first three seasons, which totalled 33 episodes, Bell handed NMM a three season order of 75 episodes, giving the company the volume to sell internationally. It airs on Hulu in the U.S.

Montefiore said that he sees Letterkenny as more than just a TV brand. It features a live tour and extensive merchandising. “We were seeing that we were selling merch internationally before we’d even sold the show. We’d sold merchandise to all 50 States including Alaska and Hawaii before the show was even legally available in the U.S.” This includes its own beer – Puppers Premium Lager. He joked, “The liquor business is the only business that is more complicated than television.”

In addition to religious comedy What Would Sal Do?, which is set for a second season after being delayed as a result of SuperChannel’s bankruptcy issues, the company makes mob drama Bad Blood. The latter was originally commissioned by CityTV and FX Canada, airs on Netflix internationally and is distributed by Sky Vision. It stars Sons of Anarchy’s Kim Coates, Without a Trace’s Anthony Lapaglia and Goodfellas’ Paul Sorvino.

Montefiore hopes that the success of Letterkenny and Bad Blood will offer opportunities in the U.S. “I’ve been spending more and more time in the US and even the Canadians we’re working with are based more in LA. The ambition and the projects that we want to do are difficult to pull together through the Canadian system. I’m looking to LA for the next phase of our company’s life. I want to replicate the model that I started with in Canada by putting the right people in place from development and infrastructure stand point.”

He said that it is now searching for talent to work with on these development projects. “The next step is finding the creators and the vision to create the series and build a package before we bring it to networks.”

Arntfield is repped by Sohrab Merchant at The Characters, Grace Freedson at Grace Freedson’s Publishing Network and Danny Webber at Hall Webber LLP. Edwards is repped by Juliet Forrester from Top Left Entertainment and Premier Artists’ Management. Donahue is repped by Addison Duffy at UTA and Carly Watters at PS Literary.

via Bell Media

Bell Media Congratulates Television and Film Production Partners on 183 Nominations for the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards

TORONTO (February 7, 2019) – Bell Media applauds its production partners, internal team members, talent, and all those involved in the creation of the productions nominated for the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards. Announced earlier today, Bell Media garnered 183 total nominations, comprising 111 television and digital nominations and 72 nominations for Bell Media-supported films. CTV is the proud Premium Partner of the Canadian Screen Awards, and the title sponsor of the Non-Fiction Programming and Creative Fiction Storytelling galas.

“Congratulations to the talented teams involved in the astounding 183 nominations recognized by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television,” said Randy Lennox, President, Bell Media. “These nominations mark another banner year of stellar Canadian programs and films and further attest to Bell Media’s lineup of quality and original Canadian productions. We are proud to work alongside the best creators in the industry, both within Bell Media and among Canada’s independent production companies.”

LETTERKENNY (7 NOMINATIONS)
New Metric Media Inc.

Best Comedy Series
Mark Montefiore, Jared Keeso, Jacob Tierney, Kara Haflidson

Best Direction, Comedy
“Bock et Biche” – Jacob Tierney

Best Lead Actor, Comedy
Jared Keeso

Best Photography, Comedy
“We Don’t Fight at Wedding” – Jim Westenbrink

Best Writing, Comedy
“Letterkenny Spelling Bee” – Jared Keeso, Jacob Tierney

Best Picture Editing, Comedy
“Letterkenny Spelling Bee” – Kyle Martin

Best Achievement in Casting
Jenny Lewis, Sara Kay