EXCLUSIVE: The glory days of music videos in the 1990s – when a hit video on MTV could change a band’s career – is set to be the subject of a new scripted drama series.
Jonas Akerlund, who has directed features including Lords of Chaos and Spun, is to direct the pilot and exec produce Glitter Fades, which comes from former music video producer Susan Agostinelli and DIGA Studios, the company run by former MTV programming chief Tony DiSanto.
Glitter Fades, which was created by Agostinelli, inspired by her years producing music videos for bands including Sublime and Sugar Ray, explores the “raw glamour, identity crises, and chaotic reinvention behind the scenes of the 1990s music video boom”. It is set in the “fast-paced, ego-fueled world where some of the most iconic images of pop culture were made – and where many identities were broken and reborn”.
Agostinelli, who worked with McG when he was making music videos, spent much of the 90s working on music videos including exec producing Sheryl Crow’s All I Wanna Do and co-exec producing Britney Spears’ … Baby One More Time as well as specials for the likes of Korn and Willie Nelson. She is producing via her TV Dinner Productions banner.
Watch on Deadline
Akerlund, a former member of Swedish black metal band Bathory, knows this world well, having made musiv videos for the likes of Queens of the Stone Age and Metallica. He won a Grammy for his video for Madonna’s Ray of Light and has worked with the likes of Paul McCartney.
DiSanto’s DIGA Studios, which produces series including HGTV’s The Flip Off and TruTV’s Hot Ones: The Game Show, will shortly take the project out to streamers and networks
The series is currently in development and will be pitched to premium streamers and networks this summer after the project won Best TV Pilot Feature Screenplay at the LA Under the Stars Film Festival at the end of last year.