#The Guardian Newspaper Inks First-Look Deal With Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed a new exclusive first-look deal with U.K. newspaper The Guardian, giving the studio first rights to The Guardian’s reporting for film and TV adaptations.

The deal will give SPE’s film and television production groups, which include film divisions such as Columbia Pictures, TriStar, Screen Gems and 3000 Pictures as well as TV operations Left Bank (The Crown), Bad Wolf (His Dark Materials), and live sports and non-scripted production company Whisper, vision, the agreement includes SPE’s feature film division, development rights to The Guardian’s current and developing news stories, as well as the paper’s archive, reaching back 200 years.

Announcing the agreement Wednesday, SPE and The Guardian said the studio has three option deals already in place that will be announced soon. The Guardian has similar agreements with Netflix, the BBC and Sky. The media group is no stranger to high-end video content. It distributed Anthony Giacchino’s documentary Colette, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 2020, as well as Ed Perkins’s 2019 best documentary short Oscar nominee Black Sheep.

“To be able to draw on The Guardian’s extraordinary journalism, past, present and future, to create a new generation of dramas, documentaries and movies, is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us at Sony Pictures,” said Wayne Garvie, President, International Production, Sony Pictures Television, in a statement. “We are continually seeking stories that have a distinctive and creative spirit, and connect with audiences the world over, and The Guardian team certainly brings those qualities through their top-notch journalism.”

The agreement was brokered by London agency group Curtis Brown and will be overseen by a team appointed by SPE and The Guardian.