‘Escort Boys’ Producer on Taking the Raunchy Comedy on ‘Darker’ Ground

After tackling gender energy dynamics within the publish #MeToo period, Prime Video‘s raunchy comedy sequence “Escort Boys” is returning for a second season that’s a number of shades darker and is world premiering at present at Canneseries.

Tailored from the Israeli present “Johnny and the Knights of Galilee” (“Milk and Honey”) and directed by Ruben Alves, the half-hour comedy sequence portrays 4 younger males who turn into escorts to make ends meet and save their household enterprise in a picturesque city in Southern France.

Boldly addressing well timed themes comparable to romantic love, feminine sexuality and poisonous masculinity, Season 1 was a success, even luring Wild Bunch TV which acquired worldwide gross sales (to seasons 1 and a couple of), and France’s main industrial channel TF1 which purchased second-window rights.

Myriam Gharbi-de Vasselot at Mediawan-owned Oberkampf Productions ‘(“Les Papillons Noirs”) who produced the sequence with Charlotte Toledano-Detaille and RTL TVI, stated Season 2 is taking a departure from the unique format. “It’s a real creation,” she says, and one which reteams Alves with Yaël Lebrati (“Pricey You”), joined by Louis Pénicaut (“Le Bureau des Legendes”).

Season 2 picks up six months after the tip of Season 1 which noticed the principle characters deciding to cease escorting to begin a lodge enterprise. “They’re pressured again into it attributable to a failed lodge enterprise which become a fiasco: they have been ripped off and confronted subsequent debt, main them to lose their area,” says de Vasselot, who additionally beforehand produced a documentary about male escorts which Wild Bunch TV picked up alongside the primary two seasons of “Escort Boys.”

“We’re going to have a look at the results and limitations of prostitution, because it’s a topic that may’t be taken flippantly and that we’re treating as realistically as potential,” she says, including that the plot will cope with the “intercourse dependancy of considered one of its fundamental characters, Ludo, who’s the daddy determine,” in addition to introduces “a lady who has been overwhelmed by her husband and makes an attempt to beat her trauma and reconnect together with her physique with the assistance of an escort.”

“That’s Ruben Alves’s signature type, all the time oscillating between drama and laughter,” she says. Whereas the present will probably be undoubtedly extra dramatic in its second season, she says it should nonetheless boast “moments of comedy, generally burlesque, generally humorous and touching, with a various vary of shoppers, all the time performed by distinctive visitor stars.”

These embrace Josiane Balasko, Marisa Berenson (“Barry Lyndon”), Thibault De Montalembert (“Name My Agent!”), Margot Bancilhon (“Machine”), Cristiana Reali (“Tenting 3”) and Afida Turner (“LOL”), who will star alongside the important thing forged of Guillaume Labbé, Thibaut Evrard, Simon Ehrlacher, Corentin Fila and Marysole Fertard.

Prime Video will premiere the sequence on June 13 in France, adopted by Italy, Spain, Germany and the U.Ok.

De Vasselot can also be creating a raft of internationally pushed tasks with completely different companions and expertise, together with Olivier Abbou with whom she beforehand collaborated on the Netflix serial killer thriller “Les Papillons Noirs.” She’s teamed up with Nathalie Perus at Atlantique Productions, one other Mediawan label, to acquired rights to a bestselling U.S. e-book whose adaptation is being penned by Abbou and Laura Fontaine (“Analysis Unit”).

She’s additionally working with “Vortex” co-creator Sarah Farkas and Marjorie Bosch (“Sam”) on a female-led sequence mission in superior growth at a streamer, and “Holy Lands” filmmaker-screenwriter Amanda Sthers’ first sequence which will probably be primarily based on an authentic story revolving round two journalists employed to create faux information.