ITV Studios buys "Sherlock" production company, Hartswood Film

ITV Studios has acquired a majority stake in "The Devil’s Hour" and "Sherlock" production house Hartswood Films. Led by CEO and Executive Producer Sue Vertue, alongside Director of Operations Debbie Vertue, Managing Director Dan Cheesbrough and Creative Director and Executive Producer Steven Moffat, the UK compnay has a broad slate of exceptional returning drama and comedy series, produced for global broadcasters and platforms including the BBC, ITV, Netflix and Prime Video. 

Other recent series include "Dracula" and mini-series thriller, "Inside Man", both for the BBC and Netflix, as well as "Wolf" and "The Control Room" for the BBC, while the nine-time Emmy award-winning "Sherlock", which ran for four series, has sold to over 200 territories worldwide. International distribution for future Hartswood Films commissions will be handled by ITV Studios.

Julian Bellamy, Managing Director ITV Studios, said: "From 'Men Behaving Badly' to 'Sherlock', 'The Devil's Hour' to 'Douglas is Cancelled¿, Hartswood Films has been a huge part of the TV landscape for decades. They have a hard won reputation for being brilliant producers of quality, ambitious and highly successful scripted television. I'm delighted to welcome them to ITV Studios.”

Sue Vertue, CEO Hartswood Films, said: “Hartswood are not known for making rash decisions and it’s taken us 40 years to make this one: we are delighted therefore to have chosen to team up with ITV Studios. We have always been open to investment if we could meet like-minded people who understood the need for independence which is at the ‘heart’ of Hartswood, while bringing us a whole new range of strengths and skills. We are a small company and have done very well on our own, but we couldn’t be more excited about a bigger future and what we can achieve together with ITV Studios.”

The acquisition is a further milestone in ITV’s strategy of expanding its international content business, with Hartswood Films becoming the latest in a line of production companies to join the group in recent years, including Nicola Shindler’s Quay Street Productions, Happy Prince, led by Dominic Treadwell-Collins, Ben Stephenson’s Poison Pen Studios and premium natural history and factual entertainment prodco, Plimsoll Productions.