Curious Films Expands into Live Programming with Boyzone Concert Film for Sky

EXCLUSIVE: Curious Films, the production company behind the hit documentary A Toxic Love Story, is expanding into the live programming space with a new concert film featuring the Irish pop group Boyzone, building on the massive success of their previous Sky documentary.

Last year, Boyzone: No Matter What became Sky’s most-watched unscripted series of all time, sparking the reunion of the Irish superstars. Curious Films subsequently produced additional episodes documenting the band’s reformation. The production house has now also captured the group’s live concert at London’s Emirates Stadium over the summer, which is set to air on Sky later this year.

The Boyzone: One for the Road live special marks a first for the UK-based documentary indie, which has spent years building a reputation for producing major true-crime and pop-culture hits for major streamers, including Netflix’s A Toxic Love Story, and Hulu’s Welcome to the Family and Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth.

Curious Films founder Dov Freedman noted that the decision to produce the live concert special came relatively late, requiring a much faster turnaround than the London-based production company typically experiences.

“[The live show] was a refreshing addition to the retrospective work we do,” Freedman stated. “While we can spend 18 months or two years crafting crime documentaries, the concert film had a much faster turnaround. It involved a different dynamic, different producers, and different skills. We had around 40 staff members working on it, shooting with about 25 cameras. It looked fantastic, and we are definitely looking to do more in that space.”

Curious Films’ timing is opportune as streaming platforms increasingly invest in live content, particularly in music and sports. Recently, Netflix UK established a dedicated commissioning team for live programming.

Freedman explained that Curious knew they had something special when they began filming the first Boyzone documentary, as the band members’ “pain close to the surface” became evident.

The project became even more compelling when former band manager Louis Walsh was interviewed, revealing that the band members had “different perspectives on the same story.” Walsh has characterized the claims made by the band members in the documentary as “fiction rather than fact.”

“The first time we got in a room with the band, we sensed that we were onto something,” Freedman recalled. “They were all going to be very honest, which felt refreshing.”

“Outsider perspective”

While Curious Films is eager to pursue more live projects, the company will continue to focus primarily on its strengths in true crime and popular culture, Freedman said. The studio recently entered a new chapter following the departure of co-founder Charlie Russell, who was succeeded by promoted Managing Director Nicky Varley. Freedman noted that Varley has “played an important role in building our relationships with Hulu, Netflix, and National Geographic.”

Freedman explained that Curious Films’ approach in recent years has focused on examining “big American ‘ripped from the headlines’ stories” and delivering them with “craft.” He believes British documentary makers possess a particular sensibility that aligns well with this approach.

“We always saw America as a good opportunity,” he added. “This isn’t new—companies before Curious have been doing it much longer—but we believed our Britishness and outsider status could help us access stories that U.S. producers might not be able to access in quite the same way. That outsider perspective also gives us a different approach to storytelling.”

While shows about the subjects of Welcome to the Family or A Toxic Love Story have aired in the past, Freedman questioned whether they were “made too quickly or reacted to events too soon.” “When we take on a story, we try to tell the definitive version,” he added. “That’s often about timing.”

In the case of these two shows, that strategy paid off.

Following a jaw-dropping revenge plot involving a newly married U.S. Marshal and his ex-girlfriend, A Toxic Love Story has hit numerous Netflix top 10 lists since launching over the summer. Meanwhile, Welcome to the Family, which tells the story of the brutal murder of law professor Dan Markel, has spent days as the number one show on Disney+ in both the U.S. and the UK.

“If you look across Curious’s slate over the last couple of years, we’ve been able to deliver large audiences at a time when audiences are fragmented and competition for viewers has never been higher,” said Freedman.

He noted that Welcome to the Family kept the highly-acclaimed Hulu scripted series Furious off the top spot for a while. “If you compare the cost of Welcome to the Family with the cost of a scripted series such as Furious, I think streamers and buyers are looking closely at the audiences that true-crime stories can bring,” he added.

Curious Films aims to double down in the American market. Freedman, speaking with Deadline from Los Angeles—which he visits three to four times a year—says the effort is “really starting to pay off.”

Up next is another Netflix true-crime series slated for early next year, which Freedman is keeping under wraps, along with a show about a “story I’ve always liked that people know, but they only know one side of it,” he added intriguingly.

Freedman’s view on the broader documentary commissioning landscape is “mixed.”

On one hand, “it’s harder than ever to get greenlights, competition is intense for stories that everyone knows are working, and buyers are making fewer bets each year.”

On the other hand, “documentaries have never been more popular or attracted such large audiences.”

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