Amazon’s “The Grand Tour” is set to get a new production company, moving from W Chump & Sons – a company set up by executive producer Andy Wilman, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May after they left “Top Gear” on the BBC network – to Expectation, the BBC Studios-backed production company founded by former Endemol President Tim Hincks and Peter Fincham, the former director of television at UK-based ITV.
The deal is expected to be finalized shortly and Expectation will handle the production of “The Grand Tour” as well as other projects from Clarkson, Hammond and May – such as Clarkson’s upcoming “I Bought A Farm” show.
Meanwhile, Hammond’s next Amazon show, a six-part series with the “Mythbusters”‘s Tory Belleci, is being made by Chimp Productions – the company he owns with his wife, Amanda – and the first installment in May’s upcoming travelogue show “Our Man In… Japan with James May” is being produced by Plum Pictures [which also produced his much loved “James May’s Toy Stories”].
When he was at ITV, Fincham had previously expressed interest in working with Wilman, Clarkson, Hammond and May after their departure from “Top Gear” and the BBC in 2015, but a non-compete clause in their BBC contract prevented that venture at that time.