For the Canadian market

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan’s comedy Catastrophe is to be remade in French.

The new version will be made for the broadcaster Super Écran in French-speaking Canada, where it is set to air in early 2017.

Still called Catastrophe – though pronounced differently –  the show will star Julie Perreault as Audrey, a Quebecois school teacher, and Rossif Sutherland (the son of Donald Sutherland) as Frank, an American Francophile who hooks up with her in Montreal.

The pair bear a physical similarity to Delaney and Horgan, who both wrote and starred in the Channel 4 original.

Their series has now been sold to more than 120 territories including France, Spain, Australia, Israel and the US, as well as an on-demand deal with Amazon Prime – but this is the first time the rights to a remake have been secured. Avalon Distribution, a sister company of co-producers Avalon TV, sold the rights to Canadian company 1R2D.
 
Filming on the remake will take place in Montreal this autumn.
 
Catastrophe has been universally acclaimed by critics – with a 100 per cent rating from professional reviews as gauged by Rotten Tomatoes – and has won a slew of accolades, including two Royal Television Society awards, two Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, a craft Bafta, a Rose D’Or  and a South Bank Sky Arts Award.

Published: 16 Jun 2016