Fox Entertainment Studios has locked a first-look development and producing deal with Cottage Industry Entertainment, the shingle founded by Lisa Hamilton Daly and Alysia Cotter Thomas. The agreement gives Fox the first right to develop and produce scripted television and feature film projects from the company before they are shopped elsewhere.
A seven-project slate built on IP
The initial slate spans four television projects and three films, leaning on books and known creative names.
- Television: The Whittiers, based on the Danielle Steel novel; a one-hour family drama from Jordanna Fraiberg; an adaptation of Lindsay MacMillan’s Summer on Lilac Island; and the comedy Mom’s Place from Angela Kinsey and Audrey Wauchope.
- Film: the hockey romantic comedy It All Comes Down to This, The View from Lake Como based on Adriana Trigiani’s novel, and an adaptation of Cynthia Hand’s The Afterlife of Holly Chase.
Why the team matters
Hamilton Daly previously ran programming at Hallmark Media, where she oversaw The Way Home, When Calls the Heart and Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story. Cotter Thomas was a literary agent at Paradigm and earlier worked at Warner Bros., including on the Christopher Nolan Batman franchise. That combination gives the shingle an unusual twin advantage: platform-side knowledge of what keeps female-skewing audiences returning, and packaging experience for book-to-screen and spec projects.
Hannah Pillemer, head of scripted at Fox Entertainment Studios, said the pair bring “creative instincts, industry experience and a real understanding of what connects with audiences.”
What the deal signals for buyers
First-look deals are pipeline tools, not series orders. A studio pays development costs and gets a first option, while the producer keeps the ability to take a project elsewhere if it is passed on. For Fox, this is a low-commitment way to attach a slate of IP-driven, female-led material without guaranteeing greenlights.
For media planners and entertainment marketers, the pattern is the signal: adaptations of books with built-in audiences, genre labels that map to predictable demographics, and talent with track records on advertiser-friendly platforms. The slate reads as a bid for the same female-skewing audience that has made Hallmark and Netflix romance titles durable. A first-look arrangement also lets Fox test projects against advertiser and platform demand before committing to production.
The IP-first math
Book adaptations and known formats reduce discovery risk. A Danielle Steel novel arrives with a global readership; a comedy from The Office and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend alumni comes with an existing fan base. That makes the slate easier to sell to advertisers and easier to position on a schedule or platform. For marketers, that reduces the cost of explaining a show to a cold audience; the book cover or actor’s face does part of the work in a crowded category.
But a slate announcement is not a greenlight. The next data point to watch is which of these seven projects moves into development first, and whether Fox places them on its own network, sells them elsewhere, or routes them through streaming partners.
Source: Variety
