Ukrainian prodco Kvartal 95 officially announced that its popular series Servant of the People has been sold to Fox Studios in the United States. The studio has optioned the format of the series which is distributed by Eccho Rights, with the deal now in its final signing phase. The US version of the series will be produced by Imagine.

CEETV reminds that the show was featured in the Pitch & Play initiative in the NATPE Miami 2016 edition of TVBIZZ Magazine which came out in January this year.

Kvartal 95’s creative director Vladimir Zelensky commented that “the story of a common, honest man who suddenly becomes the president and begins a fight with corruption on all levels is a universal story, close to viewers from around the world because people around the globe want to see decent politicians”.

The series has been sold to other countries as well as a ready-made, i.e. Estonia, Moldova, Kazakhstan and also to numerous VOD platforms. The original series started production on a second season in August, with also a feature film on its way.

Servant of the People was Ukraine’s highest rated TV series in fall 2015, becoming a record-breaker on 1+1 in all demos. According to Kvartal 95 and European media experts, this is an unprecedented case when a Ukrainian series format, created and produced in the country, travels to the US which is known for mostly exporting content and formats around the world.

KMW organizers commented that this is not the first case of selling Ukrainian series formats abroad. In particular, the series In-Laws (also produced by Kvartal 95) was sold earlier as a format to the company MTG to be distributed on the territory of Estonia. The detective series The Sniffer (Film.UA) was sold as a format to France’s TF1 and Japan’s NHK which will soon premiere the local version of the show.