Nick Hamm’s Free Turn Entertainment Hires Story Lab’s Robbie Ashcroft – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Nick and Jon Hamm’s Free Turn Entertainment has hired Robbie Ashcroft as managing partner.

Ashcroft will join Free Turn’s management team, based in London and Los Angeles. He hails from The Story Lab and will be working on its audio roster and new TV and film partnerships, among other tasks.

Ashcroft was most recently an international development partner at The Story Lab, where he established a new development and production fund for “original audio projects with cross-platform potential” in partnership with Global Media and Entertainment. This led to the green light of podcasts such as John Sweeney’s Ghislaine Hunting.

While working for The Story Lab, which is the content arm of Japanese advertising giant Dentsu, Ashcroft also managed a strategic partnership between the parent company and Yahoo to create mixed reality TV formats from an XR smart scene in Holborn, London. Interstellar used this partnership for its show All Star Dance Offon ITV2 in 2021.

“Robbie is a rare breed, he has a strong creative mind with a deep understanding of the cross-platform entertainment landscape, this gives him a unique perspective on the future of the industry in all of its existing and emerging forms,” said Jon Hamm. , CEO of Free Tour.

“Whether we’re making immersive audio dramas, developing new TV shows, or making movies, Free Turn will always strive to create something truly original. Robbie will be a great addition to the team to deliver this.

Gigi and Nate Director Nick Hamm launched Free Turn in 2020 with his executive producer brother Jon and ex-WPP exec Gemma Batterby to make movies, TV shows and “immersive audio,” as Deadline revealed to the media. ‘era.

His productions include feature films Gigi and Nate, starring Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden, Charlie Rowe, Josephine Langford, Zoe Colleti, Hannah Alligood, Jim Belushi and Diane Ladd. He was originally known as Evolution. Roadside released the project in the United States in 2022. Several projects are expected to land next year.

Ashcroft added: “Free Turn’s ability to connect all of the best international creative talent to its slate of audio, film and television projects is exceptional. Along with his ambition to provide an entertainment company that has intellectual property across all of these mediums, it was clear that joining the team was a no-brainer. We have big plans for the future and I can’t wait to start making them happen.

His release from the UK branch of The Story Lab is the second in recent weeks. Formats expert and head of acquisitions Luci Sanan stepped down after seven years earlier this month, as we revealed.