Curiosity Entertainment Enlists Execs Laurie Seidman And John Maatta & Sets Storyteller Media’s Debut Page-To-Screen Slate
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- Curiosity Entertainment named former CBS executive Laurie Seidman as Head of Film & Television; she previously served as SVP Current Programming at CBS Entertainment — overseeing The Talk and Bull — until December last year, and produced NBC's drama Medium
- John Maatta, the former COO of The CW and current partner at Frost LLP, joins Curiosity as board chair, saying the company is "building its business around one of the entertainment industry's most valuable assets — original intellectual property"
- Storyteller Media, Curiosity's publishing subsidiary co-founded by producer Adhrucia Apana and screenwriter-author Charles Allen, plans to publish 20-30 titles annually across children's, YA, adult fiction, fantasy, memoir and graphic novels, with global distribution through Macmillan
- Headlining the debut slate: "Goodman," a 2008 financial crisis dramedy written by Apana and Allen with casting director Robert Ulrich producing and Jason and Jamie Neese (The Umbrella Academy) directing, with production beginning this fall
- "Kaidro: The Awakening," a manga franchise developed with Gadget-Bot Productions and distributed globally through Macmillan, and "Witches of Calabasas," a YA fantasy from Emmy-nominated journalist Frank Elaridi, round out the flagship trio
- Additional titles include "You Don't Know Dick" by Kristina Denton, political thriller "Pay to Play," and "The Traveling Audience," the debut novel from Jason Neese, a producer of The Umbrella Academy
Why it matters: Seidman brings network-television current-programming experience (The Talk, Bull) to a company whose model — publishing 20-30 titles a year at Macmillan and pushing each into film, TV, gaming and digital adaptation — bets against the streaming arms-race for already-famous books. Goodman's production start this fall will be the first concrete proof the publishing-first pipeline can deliver a screenable property.
