Channel Nine's hit family drama House Husbands is going global. The series, about the relationship between four stay-at-home dads and their families, is to be re-made in France and Italy.
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The German-based international distributor, ZDF Enterprises, which owns the rights to the series internationally, has struck two deals for remakes.
In France, a local version of House Husbands will be produced by the production company Made In PM, which mainly produces drama for the channels TF1 and France2. In Italy, the local version will be produced by Publispei.
Both remakes will use scripts from the first season of House Husbands as the basis for their remakes. Neither remake has yet been sold to a broadcaster.
House Husbands is produced by Playmaker Media for the Nine Network.
"The rise of the stay at home dad is obviously happening everywhere and it's great when a warm, funny and relatable Aussie drama like House Husbands resonates internationally," Playmaker's David Maher said.
Nine's head of drama Andy Ryan said the deal was win because the French and Italian markets were particularly competitive.
"Just like Australian viewers, the French and Italian networks fell in love with House Husbands immediately and we can’t wait to see their local versions," he said.
The deals follow similar deals in Europe by Fremantle Media for local versions of their critically acclaimed Prisoner remake, Wentworth. Two versions of Wentworth are in production now: Germany's Block B and the Netherlands' Celblok H.
Another deal has a Romanian version of the Australian cable comedy Small Time Gangster, produced by Foxtel's Movie Extra channel in 2011, in production for HBO Europe with the title Umbre.
And in the US, a remake of Secrets & Lies is in production, and remakes of the ABC comedy The Moodys and the ABC drama The Slap are in development.
Scripted formats have become a major business for broadcasters internationally, with the US exporting Modern Family as Chile's Familia Moderna and Greece's Moderna Oikogeneia, and importing a range of programs from Denmark, Australia, Israel and other countries.
