Legendary Television is consolidating its studio operations.
The company has merged its international and domestic arms and tapped former Starz chief Chris Albrecht to lead the combined business. Albrecht takes over the lead of the studio from Nick Pepper, who was tapped in early 2018 to lead Legendary’s TV business. Pepper will transition to an executive producer role on various Legendary shows.
As part of the merged studio, former CAA co-head of TV business affairs Danny Grover has joined Legendary and will serve as its new head of business affairs after his 30-year career at the agency.
The consolidation helps streamline development work for Legendary as all domestic and international productions will be housed under the same executive regime at a time when stateside streamers are increasingly snapping up foreign programming to beef up their offerings ahead of launches in other markets.
Albrecht joined Legendary in December 2019 after he was pushed out at Starz following a 10-year run leading the premium cable network. (Sources at the time said infighting between Albrecht and new corporate parents Lionsgate led to his ouster.)
For his part, Pepper started work at Legendary in mid-2018 after serving as head of television at The Mark Gordon Co. since 2011. The former ABC Studios drama exec (Desperate Housewives, Lost, Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies) helped develop Legendary fare including Netflix’s Lost in Space, Amazon’s Carnival Row, NBC’s upcoming Debris, HBO Max’s Dune: The Sisterhood and a TV take based on Brian K. Vaughan’s beloved Paper Girls for Amazon.
Since joining Legendary Global, Albrecht has developed multiple foreign-language originals and set pacts with a number of showrunners.
