Kudos exec unveils scripted start-up Birdie Pictures

Kudos executive producer Phil Temple has set up a scripted indie backed by Studiocanal.

Birdie Pictures will, he said, be writer-led and home to “quality drama and comedy that audiences fall in love with”.

Temple has been with Kudos since 2015 and has previously been head of development for Carnival and drama and comedy creative executive at Carnival parent group NBC Universal. He also spent five years at BBC dramas’s in-house team.

His credits span both genres and include Sky comedies Code 404 and Two Weeks to Live, ITV drama The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries and BBC2/Netflix co-pro The Last Kingdom.

Birdie’s first project is set to be an adaptation of Janice Hallett’s best-selling novel The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, described by Temple as a “twist-laden, fiendishly clever mystery”.

Studiocanal has taken a “significant” investment in the indie, which joins Red Production Company in the French media group’s UK portfolio.