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EXCLUSIVE: Animal Instinct is coming to market. The latest cozy crime offering out of France, it follows a seasoned cop who awakes from a coma with the ability to communicate with animals. He quickly recruits his new animal allies to help him crack cases.
The trailer for the one-off drama landed well so there’s pre-launch buzz ahead of Animal Instinct premiering on French free-TV network France 2 this evening. France TV Distribution has swooped for sales rights on the 90-minute TV movie and will make the series its big international launch at MIP London next month.
French actor and comedian Fred Testot leads a cast that includes Ophélia Kolb from Call My Agent! alongside Benicia Makengele, David Salles, Lilea Le Borgne, Justine Viotty, Iliana Belkhadra and R. Jonathan Lambert.
To dive more deeply into the Columbo-meets-Dr. Doolittle setup of the show, the seasoned cop and lead character is Jeff. Part of a plain-clothes law enforcement unit, he has a brush with death while on a stakeout and falls into a coma. When Jeff emerges from the coma and can fully understand members of the animal kingdom, it offers a chance to work with them and in turn reinvent himself, both as an elite cop and as a father looking for redemption.
Samantha Mazeras wrote Animal Instinct, which is directed by Slimane Baptiste Berhoun and produced by Paris-based Dim Sum Entertainment.
Cozy crime projects are big sellers internationally, and France has emerged a cozy hot-spot. Another FTD-distributed title, Bright Minds – aka Astrid et Raphaëlle recently took top honors at France’s TV Export awards, and the likes of Gaumont’s L’Art Du Crime, Federation’s Tropiques Criminels and TF1’s High Intellectual Potential are all proving popular with international buyers.
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