Brad Weston’s Makeready Taps Peter Johnson As Head Of Television

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran development executive and producer Peter Johnson has joined Makeready, Brad Weston’s independent studio and financier for film, television and branded content, as head of television.

Johnson, who recently departed MRC after a two-year stint as President of Television Development, succeeds Scott Nemes who recently left Makeready to join UCP as EVP Development and Current Programming.

At MRC, Johnson worked on the company’s upcoming series The Great for Hulu and The Outsider for HBO.

Johnson previously served as EVP scripted at Legendary TV for four years. There, he oversaw such series as Colony for USA, Love for Netflix, Lost in Space for Netflix and Looming Tower for Hulu. Prior to that he spent nine years at McG’s Wonderland Sound & Vision, serving as President of Television & Digital Media and Executive Producer of content and shepherding such shows as Supernatural, Nikita, Chuck, Human Target and The OC. Johnson began his career at Fox Broadcasting where he started in research before switching to development and rising to SVP of Drama Development for the network, developing such series as House, 24, Prison Break, Boston Public and Ally McBeal.

Weston launched Makeready two years ago with backing from Entertainment One. Since then, the company has sold 14 TV projects, including Hombre, a thriller about undocumented immigrants in America, which is a pilot at Showtime starring Gael García Bernal and directed by Jonas Cuarón. The list also includes Salvage, created by Henry Chen and Jungyi Shao, in development for HBO with Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu executive producing; Rocket Men at Epix, exec produced by Robert Kurson and Brillstein Entertainment Partners; Biloxi, at USA, written and executive produced by Eric Amadio, directed by Anthony Hemingway, and exec produced by Management 360; and Geisha Assassins, an animated drama at Hulu produced alongside Dan Harmon’s Starburns Industries. After producing Class of Lies, one of the first original scripted series on Snapchat, Makeready is adapting the digital show as longer form series Private School Dicks, created by Tessa Leigh Williams, for Netflix. Makeready also is adapting Gregg Hurwitz’s bestseller Orphan X.

On the feature side, Makeready’s first theatrical release, Queen & Slim, written by Lena Waithe, directed by Melina Matsoukas and starring Daniel Kaluuya, is coming out in the fall. The company recently announced a two-year deal with This Is America helmer Hiro Murai and producing partner Nate Matteson and set a feature adaptation of Teresa Carpenter’s non-fiction crime story Mob Girl, with Jennifer Lawrence to star and Paolo Sorrentino to direct. Lawrence and her production company have a first-look deal at Makeready.

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