A24 has hired Lookout Point co-CEOs Laura Lankester and Will Johnston to senior leadership roles in the UK team as it looks to grow the global television slate.
Based in London, Lankester and Johnston will leave their current roles at the production company behind BBC/AMC’s Happy Valley and Disney+ show Renegade Nell and join A24’s UK team leaders Piers Wenger and Rose Garnett.
The new arrivals will continue to produce and deliver Netflix’s Pride And Prejudice adaptation for Lookout Point and BBC Studios. Lankester will also oversee BritBox’s Tommy And Tuppence for Lookout Point and BBCS.
Among A24’s UK series slate are recent commissions of Molly Manning Walker’s Major Players (Channel 4), Miriam Battye’s The Husbands (Apple TV+) starring Juno Temple, Leo Reich’s It Gets Worse (Channel 4), Michaela Coel’s First Day On Earth (BBC/HBO), and Alice Birch’s Ministry Of Time (BBC).
A24 is also collaborating on Adam Curtis’s BBC series Shifty and Season 2 of Dreaming Whilst Black and Such Brave Girls, and is behind the upcoming adaptation of Magnolia Parks, as well as the Liverpool FC series written by Adolescence’s Jack Thorne.
Lankester and Johnston said: “We are excited and invigorated to join A24. Their commitment to creative excellence is an inspiration, and to build with Piers and Rose is a wonderful new opportunity. Our time at Lookout Point has been a real joy and incredibly formative. We are deeply grateful to the colleagues and friends we have been honoured to work with, and to BBC Studios for ten years of success and partnership.”
Recent Lookout Point credits include two seasons of Sally Wainwright’s Gentleman Jack (BBC/HBO), the final season of Last Tango In Halifax (BBC), and the adaptation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (BBC) directed by Mira Nair.
Lankester joined Lookout Point from the BBC where she served as head of development for BBC Wales. Johnston previously worked at the BBC and was a script editor on War & Peace and To Walk Invisible.