Deadly Ambition - Pilot Pitch Experience

Deadly Ambition — a television series from Celestial Light StudiosA college journalist investigates her best friend's murder while falling for the charismatic prime suspect, whose case puts their small town under a relentless media spotlight. Pilot complete; Season One fully scripted.Celestial Light Studios, Australia · bianca@celestiallight.com.au · +61 410 812 997

Celestial Light Studios Presents

DEADLY AMBITIONCELESTIAL LIGHT ORIGINALS

Celestial Light Originals · A Pilot Presentation

A devout journalist investigates a high-profile murder — and falls for the accused: a man vilified by his community, romanticised by the public, and bound to a world governed by dark, unseen forces.

PILOT COMPLETE6 × 45 MINDRAMA / MYSTERY / DARK ROMANCESEASON ONE FULLY SCRIPTED

TRUTH IS A DANGEROUS OBSESSIONYOU MEETS NANCY DREWPILOT COMPLETE — SEASON ONE SCRIPTEDTHE OSIRICA SAGAAN AUSTRALIAN GOTHICCELESTIAL LIGHT STUDIOS

TRUTH IS A DANGEROUS OBSESSIONYOU MEETS NANCY DREWPILOT COMPLETE — SEASON ONE SCRIPTEDTHE OSIRICA SAGAAN AUSTRALIAN GOTHICCELESTIAL LIGHT STUDIOS

The Series

A college journalist investigates her best friend's murder — while falling for the charismatic prime suspect whose case puts their small town under a relentless media spotlight.

01

THE MURDER

Liana Castillo arrives at college seeking a fresh start after a scandal. Then her best friend is murdered — and Dominic Hale, the man she's falling for, becomes the prime suspect.

02

THE OBSESSION

An aspiring journalist with OCD, Liana begins to investigate. The investigation becomes fixation, dragging her, Dominic and their friends into a dark chapter of the town's history.

03

THE SPOTLIGHT

The case turns public fodder in the age of true-crime obsession. Every private secret becomes content — and every answer implicates someone she loves.

THEMES /TruthAmbitionObsessionSecretsLoyaltyFamily & FaithMoralityTrue-Crime CultureIdentity

Proof of Concept

THE PITCH TEASER

CONFIDENTIAL — INDUSTRY PREVIEW ONLY

The Ensemble

PILOT CAST

The actors bringing the world of Deadly Ambition to life in the pilot episode.

Bianca K. Nuñez as Liana Castillo in Deadly Ambition

BIANCA K. NUÑEZ

Liana Castillo

Alexander Lloyd as Dominic Hale in Deadly Ambition

ALEXANDER LLOYD

Dominic Hale

Camila Ponte Alvarez as Sofia Castillo in Deadly Ambition

CAMILA PONTE ALVAREZ

Sofia Castillo

Caitlin Lopez as Vivienne Peters in Deadly Ambition

CAITLIN LOPEZ

Vivienne Peters

Jonathan Stone as Octavious León in Deadly Ambition

JONATHAN STONE

Octavious León

Elias Jasser as Julian Farid in Deadly Ambition

ELIAS JASSER

Julian Farid

Helen Hailu as Brielle Sinclair in Deadly Ambition

HELEN HAILU

Brielle Sinclair

Izaak Love as Cole Mancini in Deadly Ambition

IZAAK LOVE

Cole Mancini

Taliesin Don as Henrietta León in Deadly Ambition

TALIESIN DON

Henrietta León

Season One

EVERY SEASON,
A NEW MYSTERY

Season One follows the murder that ignites St. Bellmore — and the investigation that turns private grief into public spectacle. Each returning season opens a new mystery that tests the characters' ambitions all over again.

The setting is fresh genre territory: an Australian gothic academia of sun-bleached sandstone campuses and coastal noir — rich with family, food, faith, language and community texture the campus mystery rarely explores outside an Anglo-American frame.

The world of St. Bellmore — coastal noir atmosphere

ST. BELLMORE — THE TOWN AT THE CENTRE OF THE SAGA

PRODUCTION DOSSIER

FORMAT6 × 45-minute episodes — one-hour drama

STATUSPilot complete

SCRIPTSSeason One fully scripted

PACKAGEPilot screenplay · pitch trailer · Season One scripts

STORY IPCompanion feature currently in production

RIGHTSInternational rights available

LAUNCH MARKETSUnited States · United Kingdom · Australia · Brazil

The Audience

THE AUDIENCE IS ALREADY WAITING

Core audience: women 18–29 — sitting at the intersection of three genres already proven at scale.

DARK ACADEMIA

14B+

#BookTok views in Brazil alone — TikTok sponsored the São Paulo Book Biennial

A canon already in readers' hands: The Secret History, The Atlas Six, Babel, Ninth House. The aesthetic has an audience; it doesn't yet have its defining screen series.

TRUE CRIME

~80%

of true-crime podcast listeners are women — 2× as likely as men to listen regularly

18–29-year-olds consume more true-crime content weekly than any other cohort, and true-crime fans average 7 hours of podcast listening a week. Gen Z's defining genre habit.

DARK ROMANCE

440.6M

viewing hours for YOU Season 4 on Netflix — the romanticised-villain effect, proven at scale

Audiences don't just forgive magnetic villains — they organise fandoms around them. Deadly Ambition builds its central love story on exactly that mechanic.

LAUNCH MARKETS

UNITED STATES

Home base of the true-crime podcast boom and the dark-academia BookTok canon.

UNITED KINGDOM

One in five podcast listeners regularly consume true crime. The cultural home of the gothic-campus aesthetic.

AUSTRALIA

High-engagement BookTok market with a YA-romantasy / true-crime crossover — and the series' home ground.

BRAZIL

Latin America's largest true-crime market — crime and psychological-suspense book sales up 25% in two years, primed and underserved by English-language adaptations.

Positioning

BUILT ON PROVEN DNA

Every engine in Deadly Ambition has already been road-tested by a hit. What's new is the combination — and the woman driving it.

NETFLIX

YOU

The romanticised-villain mechanic — 440.6M viewing hours in Season 4 alone.

THE LINEAGE

NANCY DREW / VERONICA MARS

The amateur-investigator tradition Liana Castillo inherits — solving the cases her institutions won't.

DONNA TARTT

THE SECRET HISTORY

The foundational dark-academia text informing the series' aesthetic and thematic DNA.

THE MYTHOLOGY

THE DA VINCI CODE

Ancient knowledge and secret societies whose influence extends into the modern world.

THE CW

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

Proof that a young, devoted fandom sustains a mythology-rich genre series for years.

THE POINT OF DIFFERENCE

LIANA CASTILLO

A South American / Lebanese-Australian lead in the Nancy Drew / Veronica Mars lineage — opening Latin American and Middle Eastern diaspora audiences the genre has never centred, inside an Australian gothic world of sandstone and coastal noir.

The Franchise Behind the Series

ONE TOWN. EVERY FORMAT.

Deadly Ambition is the anchor title of The Osirica Saga — a connected story world centred on the fictional town of St. Bellmore, spanning television, film and literary properties. Each title stands alone. Together, they build franchise value.

TELEVISION SERIES — ANCHOR TITLE

DEADLY AMBITION

PILOT COMPLETE · SEASON ONE SCRIPTED

The lead television title of the saga. A college journalist, a murdered best friend, a charismatic suspect — and a town whose secrets refuse to stay buried.

FEATURE FILM

THE HERMETICA

IN PRODUCTION

A college outsider suspects her Occult Studies classmates are hiding a secret they would kill to protect — when one of them is found murdered. Pitch proposal and trailer available on request.

THE BOOK SERIES

A College of Wicked Minds — Book One cover, by Bianca K. Nuñez

A College of Deadly Ambitions — Book Two cover, by Bianca K. Nuñez

BOOK SAGA

BOOK ONE ON SUBSTACK · BOOK TWO: A COLLEGE OF DEADLY AMBITIONS

Six students in Occult Studies 101 at an elite private college, whose friendships and rivalries unravel as strange mysteries lead into the buried secrets of the town's founding families. By Bianca K. Nuñez — built in public on Substack, so the fandom forms before the book reaches a shelf.

THE MARKETING MODEL

THE CAMPUS TOUR

Stand in the room with the people who love it: cast and creatives in conversation with the audience — Q&As, in-character readings, campus stops treated as tour dates, Easter eggs seeded for fans to find. Every stop funnels the fandom into the Substack and the shared mythology. A world people can walk into beats a world they can only watch.

BEYOND THE SCREEN

MERCHANDISE & DIGITAL

Digital-first products built for dark-academia, dark-romance and true-crime fandoms — journals, reading collections, artwork, stationery and mystery-inspired experiences. Each product is a discovery path: social sharing, curiosity, and back to St. Bellmore.

For Acquisitions, Sales Agents & Platforms

REQUEST
THE DECK

The full pitch package for Deadly Ambition is available to industry. Tell us who you are and where you're from — the deck follows by email.

Pilot screenplay
Season One scripts — fully written
Pitch trailer
The Osirica Saga franchise brief

bianca@celestiallight.com.au ONE-PAGE SELL SHEET (PDF)