‘Criminals Minds’ Showrunner Simon Mirren & Production Partner Benjamin Anderson Team With Applause & Locomotive Global To Create Indian ‘Pro-Serial’ Drama

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Criminal Minds showrunner Simon Mirren and his production partner Benjamin Anderson are currently in Mumbai working on a procedural drama series with Indian firms Applause Entertainment and Locomotive Global, Deadline can reveal.Mirren — also known for series such as Spooks, Versailles and Without a Trace — and Anderson are involved in the precinct-based crime ‘pro-serial’ through their new company, Case Closed Entertainment.Applause, which takes a feature film financing approach to streaming series, has greenlit the series working alongside Case Closed and Locomotive, which is based in Mumbai and California, and will look to sell it to an SVoD service once produced.

The Aditya Birla Group-owned Applause was behind the Indian remake of Peter Moffat’s BBC drama Criminal Justice and several other Western scripted format adaptations such as The Office.“The reason I had initially done remakes was for speed to market, allowing us to take a framework and reimagine it,” said Nair. “This opportunity takes that to the next level — we get to work with international creative partners in Simon and Ben and Sunder as a partner and to create an original series out of India with the best possible practices available.”Locomotive founder Sunder Aaron, who is separately working with Applause on Gurinder Chadha’s series Seeker, said the market conditions were right for a procedural drama series to be developed. “In India, there are prestige drama productions, which are evolving, and there are telenovela serial dramas that go on and on, but there is a gap in the middle for a high quality procedural drama that is fit to be seen globally,” said Aaron.“The world allows us to be courageous in storytelling and that’s what’s great about