Celestial Light Studios Presents
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.
The Series
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.
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.
The case turns public fodder in the age of true-crime obsession. Every private secret becomes content — and every answer implicates someone she loves.
The Dossiers
Five lives bound by one murder — each carrying a secret the town of St. Bellmore can't afford to surface.
FILE 01 — PROTAGONISTTHE JOURNALIST
Late 20s. Sharp-witted, ambitious, constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone. Raised devout Catholic; her OCD blurs the line between right and wrong. She investigates the darkness in others — fearing what she'll find in herself.
South American / Lebanese-Australian — a heritage the mystery genre has never centred.
FILE 02 — PRIME SUSPECTTHE ACCUSED
Early 30s. Former boxer turned security fixer for the León family; a single father who lives by his own code. Vilified by his community, romanticised by the public. Fiercely loyal — ruthless when pushed.
Protective. Unreadable. Hot-headed.
FILE 03 — INNER CIRCLETHE SKEPTIC
Funny, skeptical, tech-obsessed. Wants the freedom to be himself without losing his family — quietly navigating his sexuality within a religious Middle Eastern household.
Sees everything. Says nothing.
FILE 04 — THE LEÓN FAMILYTHE HEIRESS
Elegant, intelligent, fiercely loyal. Desperate to step out of her family's shadow — torn between protecting them and finally choosing herself.
Loyalty or independence. Not both.
FILE 05 — WITNESSTHE SURVIVOR
Philosophical, perceptive, quietly unraveling. Consumed by survivor's guilt after his girlfriend's murder, numbing the pain while pretending to have it all under control.
The cracks are starting to show.
Season One
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.
ST. BELLMORE — THE TOWN AT THE CENTRE OF THE SAGA
PRODUCTION DOSSIER
The Audience
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
Home base of the true-crime podcast boom and the dark-academia BookTok canon.
One in five podcast listeners regularly consume true crime. The cultural home of the gothic-campus aesthetic.
High-engagement BookTok market with a YA-romantasy / true-crime crossover — and the series' home ground.
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
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
The romanticised-villain mechanic — 440.6M viewing hours in Season 4 alone.
THE LINEAGE
The amateur-investigator tradition Liana Castillo inherits — solving the cases her institutions won't.
DONNA TARTT
The foundational dark-academia text informing the series' aesthetic and thematic DNA.
THE MYTHOLOGY
Ancient knowledge and secret societies whose influence extends into the modern world.
THE CW
Proof that a young, devoted fandom sustains a mythology-rich genre series for years.
THE POINT OF DIFFERENCE
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
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.
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.
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.
SERIALISING ON SUBSTACK · BOOK ONE IN PRINT TO FOLLOW
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. Built in public — the fandom forms before the book reaches a shelf.
THE MARKETING MODEL
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
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
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.