Sky to start making its own movies

Starting with the animated family film Monster Family

With Netflix scooping up the rights to multiple movies — perhaps even the upcoming third Cloverfield movie — competitors are having to adapt.

Seemingly, as a result, Sky is moving aggressively into producing their own original movies, starting a multi-million-pound investment pot.

According to Deadline, the UK broadcaster has already announced four originals, starting with the animated Monster Family, featuring the voices of Nick Frost and Jason Isaacs.

Later comes The Hurricane Heist, featuring Maggie Grace-fronted and helmed by The Fast and the Furious creator Rob Cohen. Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried’s Anon — a science fiction, Black Mirror-esque movie — will reach cinemas later, followed by the Pierce Brosnan and Dave Bautista-backed football movie Final Score.

Sky Cinema Director Ian Lewis told the publication the move will allow Sky “more influence and control” over features that appear on their channels.

“This allows us to help producers; there’s a lot of great ideas in the UK that haven’t come to fruition and we hope we can help that,” he told Deadline. “The way that films are released needs to evolve and we’re finding a way to do that rather than waiting for others.”

Lewis added that, as the number of movies produced by Hollywood decreases, they need to guarantee customers will still get new content. Each movie will be released in cinemas as well as onto Sky.