The Outrun production company is aiming for “cinematic storytelling across media”
Need to know: “Cinematic storytelling across media” is the aim of Sarah Brocklehurst’s Brock Media, the cross-format production company she founded in 2022.
The company already has a strong line in literary adaptations, notably with Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, adapted from Amy Liptrot’s memoir about a return to where she grew up on Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Starring Saoirse Ronan, the film launched at Sundance 2024, then grossed $3.2m in the UK & Ireland alone through Studiocanal, scoring Bafta nominations for outstanding British film and leading actress.
Demonstrating its cross-media capacity, Brock Media put together an impressive team for an audiobook version of Pride And Prejudice, released on Audible in September this year. Marisa Abela and Harris Dickinson headed the cast, with Glenn Close, Jessie Buckley, Bill Nighy and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, directed by Dionne Edwards; adaptations in Castilian Spanish, French, German, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese are in the works with local casts.
Studiocanal acquired a minority stake in the company in August this year, creating a development partnership that will see Studiocanal support projects across on the Brock Media slate.
A 2014 Screen Star of Tomorrow, Brocklehurst previously ran Sarah Brocklehurst Productions, through which she produced Sophie Hyde’s friendship comedy Animals, adapted by Emma Jane Unsworth from her own novel.
Key personnel: Sarah Brocklehurst, founder & CEO; Sophie Mitchell, head of development; Ludo Graham, development executive; Nicole Davis, producer.
Incoming: Extra Geography, the debut feature of Molly Manners (Netflix series One Day), is in post and will launch at a festival next year. Adapted by Succession writer Miriam Battye from a Rose Tremain short story, it is set in an all-girls boarding school where two teenage girls grapple with the challenges of girlhood: friendship, boys, studies, growing up and their summer project, “to fall in love”. Backers include Film4, BFI and Screen Yorkshire, with HanWay Films selling.
The upcoming feature slate includes Rabbit Woman, the debut feature from Baby Reindeer director Weronika Tofilska, written by Rose Lewenstein; and Golddiggers, a romantic comedy starring Lolly Adefope with writers Matilda Wnek and Ryan O’Sullivan, both backed by BBC Film. Not Now Babe, a semi-autobiographical debut feature from and starring comedian Grace Campbell; and an adaptation of Caleb Azumah Nelson’s coming-of-age novel Small Worlds are both backed by Film4.
Brock Media is gearing up for a significant TV presence with series including Longing. Created and written by Constance Cheng, it tells the true story of thousands of Chinese sailors who were deported from Liverpool in 1946. Brock also has a comic thriller from Freddy Syborn, a family sitcom from Chloe Mi Lin Ewart, and new series from Oli Lyttelton and Unsworth.
Sarah Brocklehurst says: ”I’ve always considered producing as agnostic to medium. I started producing theatre; it’s championing and nurturing a project, finding the right way to develop it creatively. To create the infrastructure, financing and route to audience for any production is the same instinct. Pride And Prejudice has that elevated, transportive storytelling that we see across all our work; and that will fuel our television series soon. We’re a small but mighty company who put a lot of care into projects every step of the way.
”We’re levelling up in terms of the scale of films on anything new we bring to the slate, and focusing on our TV commissions and growing that area of the business; while balancing that with the early career filmmakers with whom we want to build longer-term relationships.”
Contact: hello@brockmedia.com
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