David Farnor | On 28, Jun 2017

The box set of Sky’s new original drama, Riviera, has been downloaded more than 5 million times.

The series, which stars Julia Stiles and Adrian Lester, is set in the sun-drenched South of France, the opulent playground of the world’s filthy rich, where a woman whose partner dies in a suspicious explosion finds herself immersed in the morally ambiguous and audacious world of the Riviera’s dark side.

The show launched with 1.2 million viewers, live and on-demand, two weeks ago, making it the biggest premiere on Sky Atlantic this year – beating Big Little Lies and season two of Billions and becoming the most watched Sky Original premiere since Season 1 of Fortitude.

Rivera was made available as a box set on Sky Atlantic and NOW from Thursday 15th June. Since then customers have taken advantage of being able to watch the show when and how they want. Almost 1 million (965,000) watched Episode 2 on demand in the first five days before the linear showing on Thursday 22nd June. An additional 281,000 people binge-watched all 10 episodes in the first week alone. In total, within the first week, the show was downloaded more than 5.3 million times, a record for any new Sky box set, outperforming The Night Of, Billions, The Tunnel: Sabotage and Season 2 of Fortitude.

Zai Bennett, Sky’s director of programmes, comments: “Our customers want the flexibility to watch shows when and how they want. Whether that’s tuning in live to Sky Atlantic each week or binge-watching on demand – we are giving them that option. With the powerful storyline and compelling characters of Riviera, it’s no wonder viewers are already hooked with 5.3 million downloads to date.”

The drama joins a host of Sky Original Productions airing in 2017, including Tin Star coming soon, as well as Guerrilla and Jamestown, both currently available.

All episodes of Riviera are now available exclusively on Sky Atlantic and online streaming service, NOW in the UK and Ireland and Episode 3 will air on Sky Atlantic on Thursday 6th July at 9pm. Sky Q customers are able to watch it in Ultra HD.

 

Trailer: Plunge into Sky Atlantic’s Riviera this summer

25th April 2017

Julia Stiles will plunge into Sky Atlantic’s Riviera this summer – and a new trailer gives us a first look at the drama.

Created by Oscar-winning writer and director Neil Jordan (The Borgias), the show is part family drama, part high-octane crime series, set against the awe-inspiring backdrop of France’s Côte d’Azur. Based on an idea by former U2 man-ager Paul McGuinness, with the first two episodes co-written by Booker Prize-winning author John Banville (The Sea), it stars Stiles as Georgina Clios, the smart and resourceful second wife of Constantine Clios, who dies in mysterious circumstances in a yacht explosion. Georgina slowly begins a journey from light to dark as she discovers how little she knew about the man she loved and the world he lived in.

The cast of this glamourous 10-part series also includes Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones), Adrian Lester (Hustle), Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace) and Phil Davis (Poldark).

Julia Stiles comments: “I think ‘a sunny place for shady people’ is a great way to describe this show. While this world is seemingly very glamorous, opulent and beautiful, all is not what it seems and that is echoed in our main characters.”

It won’t just be Stiles plunging beneath the surface of the glamorous society, though: all episodes will be available from 15th June in the UK on Sky Atlantic as a box set. Sky Q customers will also be able to watch Riviera in Ultra HD, with up to four times the definition of HD. Non-Sky customers will be able to stream the programme on-demand on NOW, as part of a £5.99 monthly subscription.

 

Riviera: First look at Julia Stiles in Sky Atlantic’s drama

10th October 2016

Sky Atlantic has released the first image of Julia Stiles in its new drama, Riviera.

Created by Oscar-winning writer and director Neil Jordan, and co-written by Booker Prize-winning author John Banville (The Sea), the thriller is set in the opulent playground of the French Riviera, home to the world’s rich – and all the ambiguous characters, complex relationships and audacious excess that backdrop entails.

Stiles plays Georgina, a Midwestern US girl turned smart, resourceful wife of the billionaire Constantine Clios. After just a year of marriage, Georgina’s immaculate new life is blown apart when her art collector husband Constantine is killed in an explosion aboard the yacht of a Russian oligarch and arms dealer. Believing there to be more to the tragedy, she sets out to uncover what happened.

“Shooting Riviera has been such an experience already,” she comments. “The locations we’re using are stunning and the cast is really solid. In the centre of the show we have this world of luxury and excess with Georgina as the heroine of the piece. The show is driven by a number of powerful female characters, such as Irina, the first wife of her husband Constantine, played by Lena Olin. They both radiate power but in different ways.The show takes you into the hidden world of the super-rich – it’s glamorous, it’s unpredictable. All is not what it seems.”

Alongside Academy Award nominee Olin and Stiles, the show stars Adrian Lester (Undercover, London Spy), as Georgina’s friend and art dealer Robert Carver, Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones) and Dimitri Leonidas (The Monuments Men), as Constantine’s sons, Roxanne Duran (White Ribbon), as Adriana, and Phil Davis as Jukes, the art fraud investigator trying to get to the heart of the truth. Newly announced to the cast are Amr Waked (Luc Besson’s Lucy), who will play Karim Delormes, an inspector in the Nice police force determined to fight corruption, and Igal Naor (The Honourable Woman), who will play Jakob Negrescu, the former head of security for Constantine who now sits atop a pyramid of drugs, prostitution and violence.

The show is part of Sky Atlantic’s growing slate of original content, from Tin Star and Gomorrah to Fortitude and, arriving later this month, The Young Pope.

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