Sky announces riotous, neon-soaked ’80s crime thriller, A Town Called Malice, a Sky Original drama coming to Sky Max and Streaming service NOW in 2022

Sky today announces a new eight-part Sky Original drama A Town Called Malice, a raucous crime thriller and family saga set on the Costa Del Sol in the early 1980s, with a pulsating ’80s soundtrack. Casting is yet to be announced but filming is set to begin later this year and run into 2022 in London and Spain.

The series is a co-production between Vertigo Films, Sky Studios and Rogue State, and is created by Nick Love (Bulletproof, The Sweeney), who is also the lead writer on the series. A Town Called Malice follows the Lords, a crime family of petty thieves from South London who have fallen to the bottom of the criminal food chain. And they’re not happy about it.

Gene Lord is the youngest son in the clan, overlooked and neglected by his family who fail to recognise his killer instincts and keen intelligence. After narrowly surviving a gangland battle, Gene and his formidable girlfriend, Cindy, flee to Spain to evade arrest. The lovers quickly find themselves embroiled in the local underworld, and trouble starts to follow these two like night after day.

When the other Lords join them on the Costa del Sol, the family realises this is a golden opportunity to re-invent themselves and re-capture their former glory - much to the annoyance of Gene and Cindy, who have a very different plan. This is an operatic and high-octane thriller - and a musical love letter to the ’80s - filled with romance, obsession, violence, deceit, swagger and high camp.

Gabriel Silver, Director of Commissioning, Drama, Sky Studios, said: “If Dallas and Pulp Fiction created a love child to the strains of Duran Duran, it would be A Town Called Malice -- an intoxicating cocktail of ‘80s romance, avarice and violence, served up with pineapple chunks and an umbrella… Brought to life so brilliantly by Nick Love’s scripts, audiences will be taken back to the vivid world of the Costa Del Sol in its pomp, with a glorious take on the soundtrack of the era. The series is a fantastic addition to our growing line-up of home-grown, British drama on Sky in 2022.”

Nick Love creator and writer said: “I’m over excited and hugely grateful to Sky for supporting my vision once again - I have lived and breathed Malice for the past few years, and for it finally to come to fruition, is a dream come true.”

Jane Moore, CEO of Vertigo Films said: “Vertigo is delighted to be working once again with Sky and our long-time friend and colleague, Nick Love, on this exciting project, and look forward to bringing Nick’s unique vision of the 80s to life on screen.”

A Town Called Malice was commissioned by Zai Bennett, Sky’s Managing Director of Content with Paul Gilbert as the Commissioning Editor for Sky Studios. The series is a co-production between Vertigo Films, Sky Studios & Rogue State. Nick Love is the lead writer and is joined in writers’ room by Melissa Bubnic, John Jackson, Liz Lake and Matt Evans. The series producer is Andy Noble.

NBCUniversal Global Distribution will handle international sales of the series on behalf of Sky Studios.

A Town Called Malice will TX on Sky Max and NOW in late 2022.

For more information, please contact

victoria.etaghene@sky.uk

About Sky

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast Corporation. Across six countries, we connect our 23.4 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news and arts including our own award-winning original content.

Our technology, including the market leading Sky Q, connects people to everything they love – with entertainment from Sky TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer, and apps like Spotify, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Highbrow, Peloton, Fiit, and more, in one place, easy. Our streaming service NOW brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service. Through our new B2B broadband provider, Sky Connect, we offer superfast broadband with business-grade 4G back-up to small businesses in the UK.

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service, brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which will open in 2022, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years.

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation. We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice.

About NOW

NOW is the home of brilliant entertainment. We’re one of the UK’s leading streaming platforms with critically acclaimed shows, new and exclusive movies, unmissable sport and epic kids TV – all with no contract. Join in with an Entertainment, Cinema, Sports, Kids or hayu Membership to stream instantly across TV, mobile, desktop and over 60 other devices. Watch on the go and even offline with our app by downloading shows and movies.

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About Sky Studios

Sky Studios brings to screen unique stories from the very best talent in Europe.

We develop, produce and fund original drama, comedy and documentary for Sky’s 24m customers and beyond. Building on the success of critically-acclaimed Sky Originals including Emmy-winning Chernobyl, Bafta-winning Patrick Melrose and international hits Das Boot, Riviera and Britannia, Sky Studios is the new creative home of Sky Originals, such as The Third Day with Jude Law, I Hate Suzie, co-created by Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper and BAFTA-nominated hit comedy, Brassic.

We’re an agile Studio, seeking out the best untold stories from new voices while working in creative partnership with today’s best writers, producers and on-screen talent to bring viewers stories they wouldn’t find anywhere else.

With commissioning talent and production capability across the UK, Germany and Italy, we understand local tastes across Europe better than anyone else and have plans to more than double our investment in original content by 2024, fully supported and backed by Comcast NBCUniversal.

We’re also developing a new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which is expected to lead to the creation of over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK creative sector in the first five years alone.

Sky Studios invests in the cultural economy and global production sector with equity stakes in several production companies in the UK and the US, including Great British Bake-Off creator Love Productions, and the premier reality crime producer in the US, Jupiter Entertainment, creator of long-running hit Snapped. Sky Studios has invested in high quality factual specialists Blast! Films, True North Productions, and Transistor Films; natural history producer True to Nature; drama producers The Lighthouse and Longboat Pictures; and growth businesses Sugar Films, Chrysalis Vision, and Talos Films (US).

Sky Studios launched in June 2019. The senior leadership team is Chief Content Officer Jane Millichip, Chief Operating Officer Caroline Cooper, Director of Commissioning, Drama Gabriel Silver, Director of Comedy UK Jon Mountague, Director Original Production Sky Studios Italia Nils Hartmann, and Director Original Productions Sky Studios Deutschland Marcus Ammon.

About Vertigo Films

Vertigo Films is a British independent TV and Film company founded in 2002. Having built up one of the most successful feature film businesses in the UK encompassing production, distribution, sales and post-production and with a number of box office and critical hits, in recent years the company has been concentrating on television production.

With its focus on original, cinematic and international stories and a unique expertise in marketing, this has led to great success with its first show for Sky – Britannia, which is currently in its 3rd season. The company is currently in production on Amazon Prime Video’s comedy-drama Mammals starring James Corden and Sally Hawkins, and has a number of other projects in development.

About Rogue State

Rogue State is a new production company formed by film director, writer and producer Nick Love which has a close alliance with Working title films and will continue to build its relationship with Sky. Nick's credits include the films The Football Factory, The Business, Goodbye Charlie Bright, Outlaw, The Sweeney, a 2009 remake of football drama The Firm and TV series Bulletproof.