BBC Two Orders Oscar Wilde Documentary Featuring Stephen Fry, Freddie Fox, Anna Chancellor & More
BBC Two has ordered The Importance Of Being Oscar, an eighty minute documentary exploring the work of Oscar Wilde from the Banijay owned indie IWC. The one-off documentary is something of a hybrid production featuring both standard documentary elements as well as performances of Wilde's greatest works. A range of experts, enthusiasts and biographers - including Stephen Fry, Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland, and his latest biographer Matthew Sturgis - will explore Wilde’s glittering and at times, scandalous career, which would inform his work, and his subsequent disgraced exit from high society. Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner, Anna Chancellor and James Fleet are all set to star in performances in the one-off. 
Veteran French producer and TV executive Takis Candilis has joined Banijay Group in the newly created role of Head of Scripted. In said role, Candilis will oversee the entire scripted production business for the Banijay Group. He will be based in Paris and will be responsible for expanding the company's French scripted business and boosting international drama output. 
In what is being hailed as a major deal, Banijay Group and Zodiak Media have agreed terms to merge the two companies, who, between them, generate revenues of more than £640 million ($1 billion USD). 
TVGN (TV Guide Network) and Banijay International have inked a multi-year agreement which will see the London based distributor handle international distribution for the network's original series and entertainment programming. 
Banijay Group has hired former Endemol exec Caroline Baumgard to serve as the Chief Creative Officer of their recently launched North American production division Banijay Studios North America.