EXCLUSIVE: Zig Zag, the 25-year-old UK producer behind exhibits together with Fox‘s I Wanna Marry Harry, is shutting its manufacturing arm after being hit by the unscripted commissioning drought.
Zig Zag is placing Zig Zag Productions Restricted into insolvency as a part of a monetary restructuring that has resulted in six workers being made redundant.
The corporate, based in 1999 by Danny Fenton, has appointed an administrator following a gathering with collectors on Wednesday. The insolvency firm can be introduced shortly.
Deadline understands that Zig Zag had three exhibits greenlit final 12 months, price as a lot as £4.5M ($5.6M), however the sequence had been delayed indefinitely amid unsure market situations.
Zig Zag’s different corporations, together with Zig Zag Holdings and Zig Zag Media Rights, will proceed buying and selling, that means it’s not inconceivable that the model will reside on if commissions come to fruition.
Zig Zag just isn’t at present in manufacturing so no exhibits are in danger. A latest undertaking, the Antoine Fuqua-directed documentary Troublemaker: The Story Behind the Mandela Tapes, just isn’t impacted.
Fenton instructed Deadline: “Attributable to well-publicised market situations and a world slowdown of commissioning, we’re within the unenviable place of restructuring our group of corporations and, consequently, inserting Zig Zag Productions into an insolvency course of.
“I’m extremely pleased with Zig Zag Productions’ 25-year historical past and the award-winning programming we now have produced throughout that point and sorry that we weren’t in a position to climate the storm. I’d like to put on report my due to all of the employees and companions within the trade who’ve been on this journey with us.”
Throughout its quarter of a century of buying and selling, Zig Zag Productions made exhibits together with Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Males, Vinnie Jones: Hardest Cops, and Freddie Flintoff Vs The World.
I Wanna Marry Harry was its most recognizable U.S. sequence, that includes single girls competing for the hand of a person they thought was Prince Harry. It was pulled by Fox and canceled after solely 4 episodes.
Extra lately, Zig Zag made YouTube Originals characteristic documentary Increase Your Sport with Gareth Southgate, which streamed forward of the England soccer staff reaching the Euro 2020 closing.
Sport has been a constant theme of Zig Zag’s output. The corporate produced Amazon Prime Video’s Sonsational, spotlighting Son Heung-min, the South Korean soccer star who performs for Fenton’s beloved Tottenham Hotspur.
Different well-established UK producers have shut up store amid market turbulence. River Monsters producer Icon Movies closed final 12 months, whereas Banijay shut Spouse Swap and Solely Join producer RDF Tv after 30 years in February.