Park Television Productions develops, co-produces and produces television series, documentaries and feature films.
Park owns two classic feature films THE LAWNMOWER MAN and HOWLING VII and is currently developing spin off television series of both titles.
The 1992 film The LAWNMOWER MAN was a pioneering films using CGI and introducing Virtual Reality (VR). Starring Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey the film was a great success in the worldwide box-offices. A sequel film LAWNMOWER MAN 2- BEYOND CYBERSPACE was produced in 1994. Development is underway partnered with an American production company.
HOWLING VII - NEW MOON RISING was the last of the hugely successful horror brand THE HOWLING and produced and directed by Clive Turner. The development of the series is well advanced in partnership with a Canadian production entity.
Television Projects
Fly Me
A powerful political thriller
Freddie Laker was once one of the most famous faces on either side of the Atlantic. The launch of his Skytrain in 1977, democratised air travel providing cheap airfares to the US for the first time. Five years later Skytrain was bankrupt. The destruction of Skytrain is a powerful, dramatic and important story.
This television series follows the dramatic legal and personal battles fought by Freddie and his American lawyer Bob Beckman, on both sides of the Atlantic. In the end, when it looked like Freddie was about to win, it took Margaret Thatcher, eager not to jeopardise the privatisation of her national airline, putting pressure on the ‘special relationship’ with President Reagan, to finally sink Freddie. For the first time in American legal history, a President intervened in a Grand Jury case. Reagan had the Jury dismissed!
FLY ME is full of personal and public drama, corporate intrigue, involving banks, airlines, epic legal battles and political manipulation. But this isn’t just a story about one man’s rise and fall or a biopic about how a larger than life character bit off more than he could chew. What makes the story of his destruction compelling and relevant is that the combined forces of big business and politics which brought him down are still in place today, and still directly affecting how we live our lives.
Blue Eye
“Blue Eye”, spins a web of Russian government-connected oligarchs, the politics of climate change, nuclear energy and world finance markets. In a fast-moving series set against the backdrop of the world’s oldest lake and the City of London’s square mile, Blue Eye explores contemporary issues with complex characters who find themselves unwittingly caught in a spy story of global significance.
Set in London, Almaty, Kazakhstan and the stunning Lake Baikal of Siberia, the series is based on an original novel, the first of a trilogy, written by Tracy Elner an international businessman, environmentalist and teacher. In the 1990’s he had first-hand business experience of the collapse of the Former Soviet Union’s command-led economy and the ensuing transition to ‘managed’ capitalism. More recently, he’s been a pioneer in the fledgling emission markets and a regular speaker at business events with regional leaders in the Gulf States, particularly on climate change and renewables.
A treatment for the series has been written by Chris Lunt (ITV’s ‘Prey’).
The Lawnmower Man
Revival of a 1992 Cult Classic
The feature film THE LAWNMOWER MAN kick-started the VR conversation nearly 30 years ago.
The original movie was a film of unsurpassed imagination and creativity with its ground-breaking use of VR. Park with its partners aims to bring to life a whole new world of VR; a world of immersive entertainment and communication.
The feature film Lawnmower Man (based on a short story by Stephen King) starring Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey, broke new ground, for the first time incorporating computer-generated images (CGI) and effects with live action. The film took the equivalent at today’s prices of $300 million at the worldwide box office (figs. from National Association of Theatre Owners 2012 ). A successful sequel Lawnmower Man – Beyond Cyberspace was released in 1994.
Little America
Real and fictional characters of London 1939-45
Television series such as Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, with their vivid blend of storytelling against the background of an England of a bygone era, have enchanted audiences all over the world.. Little America will employ similar storytelling techniques but this time against the backdrop of the real events in Britain (and particularly London) in World War II. The years of the Blitz; of Britain standing alone against the Nazi threat; of the Battle of Britain; of the D-Day landings will all be seen through the eyes of fictional key players in the US Embassy at the time. Dramatised by top quality writers and with well known British and American actors the series will tell the engrossing behind-the-scenes story of how the United States and Britain forged their crucial wartime alliance and formed that ‘Special Relationship’ that still exists today.
Through the eyes of our fictional characters, the series will look at the personal journeys of several real Americans, and in particular the little known but hugely respected US ambassador Gil Winant, in London at the time. A London that, despite the horrors and deprivation, provided a unique,’ live-for-today’ atmosphere.
Pilot written by Caleb Ranson (Night & Day / Pilot / The Outsiders)
Operation Chastise
Much has been written about and seen of Operation Chastise, the attack on German dams carried out on 16–17 May 1943 by the RAF 617 Squadron, using a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis.
However little has been told of what happened when the Möhne and Edersee Dams were breached, causing catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr valley and of villages in the Eder valley. Two hydroelectric powerplants, factories and mines were either damaged or destroyed.
An estimated 1,600 people drowned, including many foreign prisoners-of-war. Worst hit was the city of Neheim at the confluence of the Möhne and Ruhr rivers, where over 800 people perished, among them at least 493 female forced labourers from the Ukraine.
Operation Chastise, written by Caleb Ranson as a four-part series mixes fact and footage of the brave Lancaster crews with a fictional story of the munition workers and their German employers and Nazi guards. A story that is part about the survival of the flyers; and part about the fight for survival in the raging flood that tore through the towns and factories downriver.
Springheel
A one hour renewable series about the crime-solving / paranormal investigative duo Haris “H” Habibi - a charismatic American illusionist and parkour expert with numerous TV shows behind his popularity - and Thomas Wells, the sarcastic and reclusive British creator of the phenomenally successful graphic novel ‘Springheel Jack’.
With the pilot episode written by Ben Aaronovitch (‘Rivers of London’) this contemporary show evokes SHERLOCK, X-FILES, UTOPIA and FRINGE. Plot, action, and VFX-driven, the series is rooted in the complex friendship of the mismatched protagonists, set against the backdrop of today’s fast-moving world of pop-culture, social media and the entertainment business. What neither recognizes is how interdependent they are. What both recognize, very quickly, is that SPRINGHEEL JACK - Thomas’ blockbuster graphic novel - has begun playing out in real-life events.
Each week will see Thomas and H confront a different supernatural mystery while also beginning to understand more and more the scope and the scale of the forces leveled against them. They will try to figure out why them, why now, and where such manifestations come from and worse, where they are heading. For Thomas it’s obvious; a greater power is at work, and always has been. For H, there is always a rational explanation to be found. That is at least until now.
The Howling VII
The seventh HOWLING movie was written, produced and directed by Clive Turner who had worked closely on the the Howling IV and V features. The spin off series will concentrate on two teenagers who do not quite know that they are going to become werewolves.