Wedding of the Century indie Touchdown Films has agreed a first-look deal with production funding and distribution company Drive.

Under the deal, Drive and Touchdown Films will work together to develop and produce factual series. It is the first deal to be secured by Drive since it launched its content fund, which is expected to invest £1.5m in programming this year.

Set up by John Osborne in 2016, Touchdown Films has produced factual programming for UK and US broadcasters including Apollo 8: The Mission that Changed the World for Discovery, Science Channel and Nat Geo and 12-part arts series Photos that Changed the World for Sky History. Touchdown was also behind BritBox UK and US global original, The Wedding of the Century.

Under his previous banner Brassneck TV, Osborne produced and directed Hillsborough Remembered, one of the History Channel’s most-watched UK documentaries, and has produced feature docs such as Rock ‘N’ Roll Exposed for Showtime and several films for the BBC including The Story of Skinhead.

Drive’s first-look deal follows one it struck with chef Tom Kerridge and Richard Bowron’s Bone Soup in 2019.

Touchdown’s Osborne highlighted Drive’s co-managing directors Lilla Hurst and Ben Barrett’s “truly exceptional record in getting projects financed and distributed” as driving forces behind the deal.

“They share our ambition of delivering high-quality factual television to global audiences,” he added. “We already have an exciting new slate of productions in the works with UK and US networks.”

Hurst said: “John has a unique and unmatched skill in developing blue chip programme ideas with international appeal backed by access to incredible archive.

“Together we have already developed an exciting slate of original programming that features stories tied to significant anniversaries, figures and global events”.

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