Will Arnett's Electric Avenue Signs Deal With Blink49 Studios

Will Arnett’s Electric Avenue Productions has signed a first-look television deal with Blink49 Studios, the two companies confirmed, pairing the production banner with the Canadian-backed studio to develop and produce scripted projects.

The deal marks a new chapter for Electric Avenue after Arnett’s previous first-look scripted arrangement with Fox Entertainment. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Blink49 Studios has been quietly building its development slate with an eye toward premium scripted content, and the Electric Avenue pairing gives the studio a banner with a track record on both the comedy and drama sides. For Arnett, the deal shifts his television development operation to a studio with Canadian roots, which aligns with his own background.

The move carries real business weight beyond the headline. First-look deals are the engine room of television development. They give studios a right of first refusal on a producer’s projects before those projects go out to other buyers. For Blink49, landing Electric Avenue means the studio gets early access to whatever Arnett and his team are developing before any streamer or network does. That kind of pipeline access is what studios are competing for aggressively right now, as the development market continues to consolidate around a smaller number of major players.

Electric Avenue has built its portfolio across formats. The company has had a hand in unscripted and scripted work, and Arnett himself has remained active as a producer while continuing to take on voice and on-screen roles. The production company is not a vanity operation. It has generated real projects with real budgets, which is exactly the kind of partner a mid-tier studio needs to justify a first-look commitment.

For Burbank readers tracking the business side of the industry, deals like this one matter because they signal where development activity will cluster over the next two to three years. Production companies with active first-look deals at funded studios tend to staff up, hire writers, and run development processes that generate work at every level of the business, from story editors to line producers to post-production crews. That activity flows through the local economy whether or not a project ever shoots in Burbank specifically.

Blink49 has been working to establish itself as a legitimate alternative to the major studio arms for producers who want a closer working relationship and more creative flexibility. The Entertainment industry has seen a string of similar boutique-to-mid-tier studio deals over the past two years as consolidation at the top has pushed some producers to look for partners outside the traditional studio infrastructure.

What Arnett and Electric Avenue bring to that equation is credibility with buyers. Streamers and networks take meetings with Electric Avenue because the company has delivered. That credibility is transferable. When Blink49 walks a project into a room, having Electric Avenue attached changes the conversation.

The scripted focus of the deal is also notable. Unscripted development has been the lower-risk play for many production companies coming out of the strikes and the subsequent tightening of scripted budgets across the industry. A commitment to scripted specifically suggests both parties are betting that the scripted market, while more selective than it was in the peak years, still has room for well-positioned projects from producers with buyer relationships.

No specific projects attached to the deal have been announced. Development deals at this stage typically precede greenlit projects by anywhere from several months to a couple of years, depending on how quickly material moves through the script and pitch process.

Electric Avenue and Blink49 did not provide additional comment on the scope of the deal or projected timelines for development announcements. As projects move through the pipeline and attach writers or directors, those announcements would typically come through the individual project’s studio or network rather than through the production company itself.

The deal was first reported by Deadline.