GOTEBORG: Left Bank CEO Andy Harries and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas writer Tony Grisoni revealed details about upcoming projects during keynotes at TV Drama Vision, the Gothenburg Film Festival’s TV event.

Grisoni, writer of films including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and TV series Southcliffe and the Red Riding trilogy, told the industry audience that he intends to direct his first TV project.

“I’m writing a single drama for TV, which I hope to direct,” he said.

The London-based writer is also adapting the China Mieville novel The City & The City as “a four-part drama for the BBC.”

British author Mieville’s well-received novel is part ‘weird fiction’, part police procedural, following an inspector’s hunt for the killer of young student.

During his keynote Grisoni spoke candidly about his disagreement with the ‘auteur theory’.

“Film is a social act. I’m a screenwriter so of course I’m against the auteur theory,” he said. “The auteur idea is a great marketing tool but the rest of it is just vanity. What we do is far more interesting than one person’s psychology.”

Grisoni is currently collaborating with film writer-director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) on Sky Italia series The Young Pope.

Harries on The Crown

 Earlier in the day Andy Harries gave a keynote interview in which he discussed upcoming Left Bank-Sony series The Crown, Netflix’s first UK commission.

Harries shared with audience the stirring promo he showed potential US buyers for the series.

The executive explained that he “almost fell off his chair” when Netflix offered to buy the project “in the room”.

“The Netflix deal changed as we were doing it. Initially, they wanted a lot of key territories. By the time we had finished they wanted the worldwide rights,” he explained.

Harries confirmed that casting is coming together for the project – Claire Foy is on board to play a young Queen Elizabeth – and that the production might reach out to Helen Mirren, with whom he collaborated on The Queen, in later seasons of the series.

He also touched on his sons’ successful YouTube blog JacksGap, which has almost 4 million subscribers:

“Sponsorship drives the business,” he added. “Skype and Marriott Hotels have sponsored recent short films. I think what is really interesting is that this is a whole new strata.

“There are a lot of self-trained kids who are not interested in broadcast TV but want to do their own thing and platforms like Youtube are their future.”

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