AMC’s new series The Salisbury Poisonings and Gangs of London will both make their exclusive U.S. debut on AMC’s streaming service, AMC+, in October before making their way to the AMC basic cable network in January, said AMC Networks’ Dan McDermott, president, original programming and co-president of AMC Studios at the Television Critics Association’s virtual press tour on Friday.

Season one of Gareth Evans’ critically-acclaimed Gangs of London already aired on the UK’s Sky Atlantic in April. The Salisbury Poisonings, which was produced by and aired on the BBC in June, is based on the poisonings of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England in March 2018. (Both lived after hospital stays.)

Along those lines, AMC is continuing to build on its true-crime franchise, signing talent deals with Mona Chalabi, Naomi Ekperigin, Cameron Esposito and Jena Friedman to develop original true-crime series. It’s also working with producing partners Left/Right and World of Wonder to develop new true-crime projects with AMC Studios distributing internationally.

Premiering on AMC in October is the network’s anticipated anthology series, Soulmates, from Will Bridges, who won an Emmy for writing Black Mirror’s “U.S.S. Callister,” and writer and actor Brett Holdstein. The series is based on the duo’s 2013 short film, For Life, which considers what life would be like if everyone could identify their soulmate. The series features a bevy of big-name guest stars, such as Succession’s Sarah Snook, The OA’s Kingsley Ben-Adir, Billions’ David Costabile and Malin Ackerman, Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton, Breaking Bad’s Betsy Brandt and many more. The six-episode anthology series will premiere Monday, Oct. 5, and AMC said Friday that a second season already has been ordered.

While the pandemic has stalled production on AMC’s main franchise, The Walking Dead, it will air its tenth-season finale on Oct. 4, followed by the series premiere of spin-off The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Six more post-finale episodes of season 10 will air in early 2021 with season 11 pushed back to fall 2021. Another Walking Dead spin-off, Fear the Walking Dead, returns for its sixth season on Sunday, Oct. 11.

Adding to AMC’s October horror-adjacent offerings, season two of Eli Roth’s History of Horror premieres on the network on Saturday, Oct. 10. Rather than being a horror series, however, the show examines scary movies and the people who make them, interviewing such luminaries as Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino, Jordan Peele, Bill Harder, Greg Nicotero and many more.

AMC Networks will air a piece of counter-pandemic programming, McDermott said, with Planet Earth: A Celebration on Monday, Aug. 31 at 8 p.m./7 p.m. ET/CT on BBC America, AMC, IFC and Sundance TV. The special will highlight eight sequences from Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II and features new narration from Sir David Attenborough along with new musical compositions.

As far as new series go, Lost and Hawaii Five-O’s Daniel Dae Kim has joined the voice cast for its first-ever primetime animated series, Pantheon. Joining Kim on the cast is Katie Chang, Paul Dano, Rosemarie DeWitt, Ron Livingston, Aaron Eckhart, Taylor Schilling, Chris Diamantopoulos, Raza Jaffrey, Scott McNairy, Anika Noni Rose, Grey Griffin, SungWon Cho, kevin Durand, Samuel Roukin and Krystina Alabado.

Pantheon is based on a collection of short stories written by Ken Liu about human intelligence that is uploaded to the cloud. It’s created and written by showrunner Craig Silverstein with Liu serving as consulting producer. Animation studio Titmouse also is attached to the project, which AMC has ordered for two seasons of eight one-hour episodes.

Tags: amc networks amc+ bbc america fear the walking dead sundance tv tca 2020 the walking dead the walking dead: worlds beyond


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