‘Fauda’ Creators Set Pair of TV Shows at Netflix
The streaming giant has handed out a straight-to-series order for an untitled CIA drama from creators Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, starring the latter, and put in development a political espionage thriller called Hit and Run.
Set to premiere in 2018, the untitled drama is inspired by actual events and follows a high-stakes global operation by the CIA and Mossad to track down and kill one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. Issacharoff and Raz will executive produce alongside Principato-Young’s Peter Principato, Itay Reiss and Kimberlin Belloni. An episode count has not yet been determined.
On the development side, Hit and Run revolves around a happily married man whose life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. The political espionage thriller will be exec produced by Raz and Issacharoff alongside Principato, Reiss and Belloni as well as Mandeville Films’ David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Laurie Zaks.
“Lior and Avi are excellent storytellers and we’re proud to expand our relationship with them,” said Cindy Holland, vp originals at Netflix. “We’re drawn to the global vision they have for their projects, each infused with drama, urgency and relevance to our modern era.”
Fauda (Arabic for chaos) was created by Raz and Issacharoff. It is based on their real-life experiences serving in the Israeli Defense Force’s special forces unit. The Israeli drama, which Netflix picked up in 2016, stars Raz as the commander of a mista’arvim, a commando unit trained to operate undercover in the Palestinian territories. Fauda became one of Israel television’s biggest hits when its first season premiered in 2015. The show won six Ophir Awards — the Israeli equivalent of the Emmys — including best drama in June. Season two is set to hit Netflix in 2018 in all regions outside of Israel and France.
“We are incredibly excited to start these projects with Netflix. It is an honor for us to continue our relationship with them, and we are thrilled to be expanding our stories to be shared worldwide,” Raz and Issacharoff said in a joint statement.
Raz and Issacharoff are repped by UTA and Principato-Young.
