JACK THORNE

Writer

Thorne ranks as one of the U.K.’S most prolific and sought-after writers. His adaptation of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” enjoyed primetime success on the BBC; he wrote the screenplay for “The Aeronauts”; his adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” is running at London’s Old Vic; and he helped J.K. Rowling bring “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” to the stage. It’s little wonder that the BAFTA, Tony and Olivier award-winning Thorne is in demand. Another raft of projects will be released this year: Netflix original “The Eddy,” Damien Chazelle’s first TV project; Legendary’s detective movie, “Enola Holmes”; and his feature adaptation of “The Secret Garden.”

Drama producer Woodward Gentle has steered two different but equally pleasurable hits to the small screen in recent years: Phoebe Waller-bridge’s “Killing Eve” and Simon Nye’s “The Durrells.” The former seemed to capture the zeitgeist with its tale of a fearless and stylish woman at the center of a tangled dramatic web, while the Keeley Hawes-starring family saga “The Durrells” wrapped last year after four successful seasons on ITV. A former creative director at “Downton Abbey” producer Carnival Films and at the BBC, Woodward Gentle founded her production company, Sid Gentle, in 2013; BBC Studios took a majority stake in 2018. Sid Gentle is in production on the third season of the BAFTAAND Emmy-winning “Killing Eve,” whose first two seasons have been huge hits. Woodward Gentle says a lot of energy has been spent on the series, but her company has an ambitious slate of authored drama, including some movie-to-tv projects, coming up. “We’ll be continuing to grow by looking at really adventurous, idiosyncratic, thoughtful IP and pairing that up with brilliant voices,” she says. “We go too left field sometimes, but we can’t help it — that’s where we think things can be really interesting. We love a twist on a genre. We love stuff that feels really entertaining but at the same time provocative and slightly subversive.”