House of Lies heading to Sky Atlantic

Sky Atlantic has picked up the UK rights to Showtime‘s new comedy House of Lies starring Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell.

Sky Atlantic HD today (Thursday 12 January 2012) announced a deal with CBS Studios International for the exclusive free and basic UK TV rights for the new SHOWTIME® comedy House of Lies. The announcement was made today by Sarah Wright, Controller of Acquisitions, Sky Entertainment, and Stephen Tague, Senior Vice President Europe, CBS Studios International.

House of Lies is a new dark comedy series about all the screwed up ways big business is practiced these days. The series is based on the hit tell-all book from best-selling author Martin Kihn (House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time). The half-hour comedy series stars Golden Globe® winner and Oscar®, BAFTA® and Emmy® nominee Don Cheadle (Ocean’s Twelve, Crash, Hotel Rwanda) as Marty Kaan, a highly successful, cutthroat consultant who is never above using any means (or anyone) necessary to get his way with his clients.

Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) also stars as Jeannie Van Der Hooven, a razor-sharp, Ivy League graduate who works at Marty’s firm. Marty’s life is further complicated by his acerbic ex-wife Monica (Dawn Olivieri, The Vampire Diaries), psychoanalyst father Jeremiah (Emmy® award winner Glynn Turman, In Treatment) and young son Roscoe (newcomer Donis Leonard Jr.)  House of Lies also stars Emmy® award winner Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation) as Clyde, a young member of Marty’s team and a major suck up, and Josh Lawson (The Wedding Party) as Doug, a brilliant, Harvard-educated addition to the team.

“We are delighted to have secured the rights to this fresh, ballsy SHOWTIME comedy from CBS Studios International that will sit perfectly alongside the other iconic series on Sky Atlantic HD. We’re huge fans of Don Cheadle and can’t wait for him to join the channel’s already stellar line up of acting talent.” – Sarah Wright

“House of Lies is an excellent addition to Sky Atlantic and builds on the grown up comedy flavour of the channel, following in the footsteps of NURSE JACKIE and THIS IS JINSY. This is a classy, sexy, brilliant comedy with balls!”  – Elaine Pyke, Director of Sky Atlantic HD

“With its smart, edgy writing and sexy, top-notch cast, House of Lies is the perfect fit for Sky Atlantic HD.”  – Stephen Tague

House of Lies is created and executive produced by Matthew Carnahan. Jessika Borsiczky, Stephen Hopkins and Don Cheadle also serve as executive producers for the CBS Studios International distributed series, which is set to premiere in the US in January 2012 on the premium cable network SHOWTIME. In the UK, the series will exclusively air on Sky Atlantic HD and Sky Atlantic in Summer 2012.