World Screen Pre-MIPCOM 2018

WS_0918_COVER_WSN_109_COVER 9/4/18 1:44 PM Page 1

Pre-MIPCOM Edition

WWW.WORLDSCREEN.COM

THE MAGAZINE OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA • SEPTEMBER 2018

Drama Trends /Inside Jack Ryan /Maggie Siff / Ioan Gruffudd / Robert & Michelle King /Jack Thorne ZDF Enterprises’ Fred Burcksen /Boat Rocker’s David Fortier, Ivan Schneeberg & John Young / Sonar’s David Ellender

SPREAD TEMPLATE_Layout 1 8/30/18 11:06 AM Page 1

SPREAD TEMPLATE_Layout 1 8/30/18 11:07 AM Page 2

WS_0918__Layout 1 9/4/18 12:57 PM Page 1

SPREAD TEMPLATE_Layout 1 8/30/18 11:04 AM Page 2

WS_0918_TOC_1_05 WSN TOC 9/4/18 10:16 AM Page 2

CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER 2018/PRE-MIPCOM EDITION DEPARTMENTS WORLD VIEW

By Anna Carugati.

Publisher Ricardo Seguin Guise

10

Group Editorial Director Anna Carugati

UPFRONTS 12 New content on the market.

IN THE NEWS ZDF Enterprises’ Fred Burcksen.

38

SPOTLIGHT Sonar Entertainment’s David Ellender.

44

BEHIND THE SCENES The Good Fight ’s Robert and Michelle King.

46

FOCUS ON Kiri ’s Jack Thorne.

48

WORLD’S END In the stars.

Editor Mansha Daswani Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Managing Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Associate Editor Sara Alessi Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari Associate Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Rafael Blanco Editorial Assistant, Spanish-Language Publications Jessica Ávila Contributing Editor Elizabeth Guider Production & Design Director Victor L. Cuevas

50

Maggie Siff

Ioan Gruffudd

Online Director Simon Weaver Art Director Phyllis Q. Busell Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Dana Mattison Sales & Marketing Coordinator Nathalia Lopez Business Affairs Manager Andrea Moreno Contributing Writers Steve Clarke Andy Fry Jane Marlow Joanna Stephens Jay Stuart David Wood Copy Editor Marina Chao

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP WORLD SCREEN is published ten times per year: January, February, March, April, May, June/July, September, October, November and December.

Annual subscription price: Inside the U.S.: $90.00 Outside the U.S.: $160.00 Send checks, company information and address corrections to: WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A. For a free subscription to our newsletters, please visit www.subscriptions.ws.

SPECIAL REPORTS 22 SHOOTING FOR THE STARS Leading distributors discuss how their drama investment and distribution strategies are evolving.

30 JACK RYAN IS BACK! John Krasinski, Wendell Pierce and Dina Shihabi, the stars of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, along with co-creator Carlton Cuse, talk about bringing the beloved character to life on the small screen.

41 ROCKING THE BOAT David Fortier, Ivan Schneeberg and John Young share their vision for building Boat Rocker Media into a multi-genre global indie.

8 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development WORLD SCREEN is a registered trademark of WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A. Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.worldscreen.com ©2018 WSN INC. Printed by Fry Communications No part of this publication can be used, reprinted, copied or stored in any medium without the publisher’s authorization.

WS_0918__Layout 1 9/4/18 12:59 PM Page 1

WS_0918_WORLD VIEW_WSN_407_WORLD VIEW 9/4/18 10:17 AM Page 2

WORLD VIEW

BY ANNA CARUGATI

What a Difference Ten Years Make Remember the fiery autumn of 2008, when fear was widespread and practically palpable? Financial institutions, driven by unbridled greed, had taken advantage of consumer ignorance by selling toxic subprime mortgages. This triggered a slow but inevitable downward spiral that caused the value of homes to plummet and financial institutions to go bankrupt.

At the end of September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 800 points, the largest single-day drop in its history. News reports drew parallels to the stock market crash of 1929 and in the following weeks, loans and credit dried up, while banks and Detroit carmakers were begging for bailouts. Financial repercussions were felt around the globe, plunging many countries into a deep recession. Let’s not forget that the fall of 2008 also brought us “Yes We Can” and President Barack Obama, whose administration inherited this economic calamity but implemented numerous measures to quell the damage.

Nevertheless, the ramifications of the 2008 recession have been extensive and profound. While banks and Wall Street bounced back, millions of individuals have not. Economic difficulties, along with automation and globalization, have left scores of communities feeling left behind, cut off from opportunity. This has emboldened populist movements and given rise to the “politics of rancor” that were clearly on display in the 2016 U.K. referendum, which brought Brexit, and the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, which yielded Donald Trump, and are still in play now in countries such as Italy and Spain.

The world is a messed-up place right now. As I was researching 2008 and the last ten years, I was reminded that although barraged by disruption, one business that has progressed by leaps and bounds, to the considerable benefit of consumers, is television, or content, which is the preferred term these days.

Just think about the surge in quality of TV series. As we were still mourning The Sopranos, which ended in June of 2007, Breaking Bad premiered in January 2008. Later that year its star, Bryan Cranston, won an Emmy as best actor and Mad Men won the first of its four outstanding drama series Emmys. Shows as diverse as Fringe, Sons of Anarchy and In Treatment all premiered in 2008, and so did The Mentalist, a traditional procedural, but one that became a hit in many countries.

The appetite for high-end drama intensified throughout the world. Forbrydelsen premiered in 2007, sold internationally and spawned local versions, including The Killing in the U.S., and turned worldwide audiences on to Scandi noir. Today, non-English-language drama— from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Korea—is available everywhere, thanks in large part to OTT services. Back in 2008, we were just getting used to watching on our computer screens as Netflix had started its

One business that has

progressed by leaps and bounds is television.

10 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

streaming offering the year before. Today, we binge on any size screen and Netflix is just one of many streamers.

Who would have thought, ten years ago, that major media behemoths would consider OTTs a threat to their survival or merge with a telco, as in the case of Time Warner and AT&T? Or that the FAANGs—Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google—would invest billions of dollars in content? Or that there would be upwards of 500 drama series being developed and produced in the U.S.?

Ten years ago, who would have thought we would be watching shows before or after we shopped online, as many of us do on Amazon? And ten years ago, I would have never imagined having so much choice, or needing so much time to decide what series to watch, find it and then find time to watch every episode.

In this issue, we speak with talent and executives who have participated in TV’s evolution this past decade.

Showrunners Robert and Michelle King have an interesting connection to 2008. That year, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned because of his involvement in a prostitution scandal. On the day he announced he was stepping down, his wife was standing at his side, stricken and pale-faced. Spitzer’s was one of the political sex scandals that served as inspiration for The Good Wife, which the Kings created. In this issue, they talk about the spin-off, The Good Fight. The 2008 recession and arrest of Bernard Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme defrauded billions of dollars from thousands of clients, drew the public’s attention to the financial world. The TV series Billions takes viewers inside the power and politics of Manhattan high finance. We talk to Maggie Siff, who plays psychiatrist Wendy Rhoades, about this high-pressure world of Alpha males and females. In the past decade, there has been a considerable crossover of talent between feature films and TV. Actor Ioan Gruffudd talks about the buoyant opportunities in television. The cast and co-creator of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan discuss bringing a beloved character to the small screen. And we speak to ZDF Enterprises’ Fred Burcksen, Sonar’s David Ellender and Boat Rocker’s David Fortier, Ivan Schneeberg and John Young—whose companies are all active in high-end scripted fare. Also, we hear from a range of leading distributors about how their drama investment and distribution strategies are evolving.

Despite the continued adverse impacts of the 2008 recession, one bright spot remains—the content business.

Yes, disruption and change are its operative words, but we consumers are reaping the benefits of this frenzied evolution: choice and quality.

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/31/18 12:48 PM Page 1

WS_0918_UPS_Layout 1 9/4/18 10:19 AM Page 1

UPFRONTS

A+E Networks

Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book / Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story / Nightwatch Nation Executive produced by Robert Zemeckis, Project Blue Book is based on real investigations into UFOs and related phenomena conducted by the U.S. Air Force. “There is nothing quite like it out there at the moment,” says Richard TulkHart, A+E Networks’ managing director of international content distribution and co-productions. “A+E once again has tapped into the zeitgeist and overall enthusiasm and fascination with this topic.” Another MIPCOM highlight is the TV movie Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story, starring Christina Ricci and Judith Light. “We are thrilled to be launching our newest [TV-movie] title, which is a gripping narrative inspired by the groundbreaking 19th-century journalist Nellie Bly,” Tulk-Hart says. Nightwatch Nation, meanwhile, follows the success of the first Nightwatch series.

“We are hugely proud of not only the volume of content we produce but the quality that is so obviously there.”

—Richard Tulk-Hart

BBC Studios Dynasties / Les Misérables / MotherFatherSon The new natural-history series Dynasties examines the family dynamics of five different types of wild animals.

“We have seen the huge global appetite for premium natural history following the international success of Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II and with BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit again at the helm, Dynasties raises the bar of what is possible in this genre,” says Paul Dempsey, the president of global markets at BBC Studios. Also being presented to MIPCOM buyers is Les Misérables, which Dempsey calls an “event drama of the highest quality.” He adds, “A classic story, a great cast and a fantastic production team mean this title has already attracted a lot of interest.” Richard Gere, Helen McCrory and Billy Howle star in the political and psychological drama MotherFatherSon.

MotherFatherSon

“The quality of the storytelling and the talent involved in each of these projects really sets these titles apart.”

—Paul Dempsey

Boat Rocker Rights

Vintage Tech Hunters

Vintage Tech Hunters / Cavendish / History in the Making Retro collectors search for rare and obscure technology in Vintage Tech Hunters. Produced by Boat Rocker’s Crooked Horse, the series “is a fun, tech-focused transactional show that will no doubt appeal to an international audience,” says Jon Rutherford, the president of Boat Rocker Rights. Cavendish follows two brothers as they return home to care for their grumpy and ailing father. Cavendish, which is being produced

by Boat Rocker’s Temple Street, “is a new and exciting venture into situational comedy for our team,” notes Rutherford. Currently in production on its second season, History in the Making looks at craftsmen around the world who have been using the same methods for decades, centuries or even millennia. “History in the Making is Boat Rocker Media’s very first fully self-financed production,” Rutherford says.

“Boat Rocker Rights has played an integral role in the development, production and distribution of these three highlights.”

—Jon Rutherford

12 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/31/18 12:50 PM Page 1

WS_0918_UPS_Layout 1 9/4/18 10:22 AM Page 2

Escapade Media 600 Bottles of Wine / Slice / Walking Points The new short-form series 600 Bottles of Wine centers on a woman who is thrown back into the world of dating after a break-up. “It’s globally appealing as we have all embarked on this journey and because the creators channeled their observations of digital engagement,” says Natalie Lawley, the managing director of Escapade Media. Slice sees host Adam Richman expose viewers to local foods around the globe. “Escapade has already received presale offers for Slice from leading broadcasters in major territories,” notes Lawley. Available in 4K, Walking Points is a feature-length doc exploring the theory that dogs may have the ability to detect cancer in human beings. “This is a unique and new way of approaching cancer and gives the audience a lot of new information,” she adds.

600 Bottles of Wine

“The malleable nature of short-form content means that we have been able to create versatile durations that appeal to all platforms.”

—Natalie Lawley

FUN Union BabyRiki / Panda and Krash / KikoRiki Mixing live-action video with animation, BabyRiki follows the adventures of toys that come to life in a child’s bedroom.

“This series has proven to be immensely popular in all markets where it has launched, including Russia, China, Brazil, Latin America, Israel and Korea,” says Christine Brendle, the CEO of FUN Union. The company is also offering up a 7minute extension of the show, tentatively titled BabyRiki New Adventures. Another highlight is Panda and Krash, an animated co-production that will be making its global debut during MIPJunior and MIPCOM. Then there is KikoRiki and its sister series PinCode. “We anticipate that the launch of Panda and Krash will spark renewed interest in KikoRiki, an iconic series for young primary school [kids] that originally launched in Russia some 15 years ago,” adds Brendle.

BabyRiki

“At MIPCOM, we will focus on distribution deals for Western and Central Europe as well as the Nordics and the Asia Pacific.”

—Christine Brendle

Global Agency Daydreamer / Breathless / Fashion Auction Two independent individuals unexpectedly cross paths and fall in love in Daydreamer, a romantic dramedy that is being presented by Global Agency. “We believe that it will attract buyers’ interest with its strong storyline, cast and production quality,” says Izzet Pinto, the company’s founder and CEO. Breathless is a brand-new drama series that comes from the producers of 1001 Nights. Fashion Auction, meanwhile, “is a very entertaining and unique format that will attract many buyers,” according to Pinto. “Websites that offer people the possibility to sell secondhand fashion clothes and accessories at auction are booming,” he says.

“Anybody can sell and anybody can buy. What’s appealing is that luxury becomes affordable for everybody. It is a real auction experience with all the excitement of a bidding war.”

“Daydreamer has been one of the mosttalked-about and popular series across all social media platforms.”

—Izzet Pinto

14 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

Daydreamer

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/30/18 10:58 AM Page 1

WS_0918_UPS_Layout 1 9/4/18 10:24 AM Page 3

Hat Trick International

Flack

Howard vs The People / The Time It Takes / Flack Brooklyn-based lawyer Howard Greenberg, who works 24/7, 365 days a year and is known for his outrageous courtroom style, is the focus of Howard vs The People (working title). The documentary series is “like no other,” says Sarah Tong, the director of sales at Hat Trick International. It goes “inside the world of a one-of-a-kind criminal defense lawyer and the people who come through his door facing everything from car crime to murder charges.” Another highlight is the prime-time quiz format The Time It Takes, which Tong calls “a vibrant, exciting and fun format for the whole family.” There is also Flack, starring Academy Award winner Anna Paquin as a London-based PR agent who is tasked with fixing other people’s lives, despite the fact that she isn’t capable of fixing her own.

“Set in the world of public relations, Flack is an exciting new series that presents varied and vibrant characters embroiled in a constant onslaught of murky dilemmas.”

—Sarah Tong

Inter Medya

The Pit

The Pit / The Perfect Couple / Flames of Desire Produced by Ay Yapim, The Pit tells the story of a young man torn between his love, his family and his neighborhood. Aras Bulut Iynemli and Dilan Çiçek Deniz star in the drama series. Inter Medya is also presenting Flames of Desire, about two young people who are forced to marry despite having their own goals and interests.

Alongside the drama slate, the company has formats to offer the market as well. This includes the reality dating show The Perfect Couple. Set on a private island, the series watches as single men and women try to win keys to rooms at an exclusive villa, but there aren’t enough keys for everyone. “This fast and exciting format will definitely attract the crowd,” says Can Okan, founder and CEO of Inter Medya.

“We are planning on presenting a number of new projects, so stay tuned!” —Can Okan

Multicom Entertainment Group

For Now

For Now / Streaker / 4K Restorations The movie For Now is about four Australians who take a road trip together to California to audition for a dance school. “This film was completely improvised and shot over a seven-day period,” explains Darrin Holender, president of Multicom Entertainment Group. The company is also presenting the film Streaker, a sports comedy. In the movie, an out-of-luck high school teacher trying to get out of a financial crisis starts recruiting and training streakers and setting up bets on how long they can stay on the football field. Also, since mid-2017, Multicom Entertainment Group has completed more than 20 film restorations from 35mm and 16mm film to digital 4K and UHD. This includes the documentary The Long Way Home, horror films The Convent and Slaughterhouse Rock, and romantic biopic The Whole Wide World.

“Having acquired several hundreds of hours of content in 2018, Multicom’s vast catalog can provide buyers with content from nearly any genre.”

—Darrin Holender 16 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/31/18 12:57 PM Page 1

WS_0918_UPS_Layout 1 9/4/18 10:24 AM Page 4

Red Arrow Studios International Death and Nightingales / Pirates Inc. / Don’t Stop the Music

Don’t Stop the Music

The drama Death and Nightingales is based on Eugene McCabe’s modern Irish classic novel. Henrik Pabst, the president of Red Arrow Studios International, calls it a “haunting period drama.” The story is set in the countryside of Fermanagh, Ireland, in 1885, and all the action takes place over a 24-hour period. The company is also presenting the factual-entertainment series Pirates Inc., featuring a team that flips the luxury spoils of drug-runners, from speedboats and mini-submarines to exotic cars and light aircraft. They specialize in retrieving high-value items, embarking on a series of dangerous, complicated and unpredictable missions against some of the world’s most notorious criminals. There’s also Don’t Stop the Music, which Pabst calls an “uplifting new social-experiment format.” The show follows the progress of children from an underprivileged school as a groundbreaking new music program is introduced. “At MIPCOM 2018, Red Arrow Studios International is focused on delivering an impressive and diverse slate of new shows that cover all genres and reflect the quality and ambition of our global network of in-house production companies and outstanding thirdparty producers,” says Pabst. He has seen growing demand in the marketplace for “scripted series featuring A-list talent, highly original new formats and non-scripted content, from factual entertainment to factual series and films.”

“Our new catalog for MIPCOM showcases both quality and breadth, reflecting the trends and demands we are seeing from program buyers internationally.”

—Henrik Pabst

Sky Vision

Life: First Steps

Curfew / The Victim / Life: First Steps From the producers of Peaky Blinders comes the new Sky One drama Curfew. The series follows the story of people who compete in the world’s fastest, most furious, illegal nighttime street race, setting out to win the ultimate prize: freedom from the totalitarian government curfew that controls their lives. “Curfew will be an ambitious, noisy and adrenalized rush of a show—among the biggest and most complex ever made in the U.K.,” says Leona Connell, director of sales at Sky Vision. “It will have the scale and ambition of a U.S. series, coupled with the heart and soul of a U.K. show.”

The company is also showcasing The Victim, a legal thriller told through the eyes of the plaintiff and the accused. “The Victim has a very strong script written by Rob Williams (The Man in the High Castle), a plot filled with unpredictable twists and turns and a great cast, which makes this a compelling, must-see drama,” says Connell. Meanwhile, the natural-history series Life: First Steps follows as biologist Patrick Aryee takes viewers from the outback of Australia to the Costa Rican coast to watch as a cast of young animals learns the life skills they’ll need to survive in the wild. The show spotlights how these tiny creatures overcome new challenges and the lengths some animal parents will go to protect their precious offspring. “Heartwarming, heart-wrenching and heart-stopping, this is nature at its best,” says Connell.

“Our early involvement in programming, by supporting development and financing content, means that we are able to inform producers of international trends and our customers’ editorial preferences.”

—Leona Connell 18 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918__Layout 1 9/4/18 12:49 PM Page 1

WS_0918_UPS_Layout 1 9/4/18 10:25 AM Page 5

STUDIOCANAL

Moscow Noir

Moscow Noir / Interns / Esther’s Notebooks Inspired by true events, the thriller Moscow Noir takes a look at the dark, corrupt and violent world of Russian oligarchs and their private armies at the turn of the 21st century. It stars Adam Pålsson as a young, expatriate Swedish trader in Moscow. The drama Interns is set in a public hospital, where the doctors in charge of the intern department find themselves quarantined at home for 48 hours. Three inexperienced interns and a medical examiner who don’t know each other must tackle the situation head-on and handle the department on their own. “Interns is an intense and engrossing drama with a highly researched and realistic medical narrative created by former doctor Thomas Lilti, director of three critically acclaimed medical-themed features,” says Beatriz Campos, the head of international sales at STUDIOCANAL. Targeting children 10-plus and their families, the animated series Esther’s Notebooks is adapted from the acclaimed books by comic artist and filmmaker Riad Sattouf. “The animated series of the best-selling Esther’s Notebooks is highly anticipated by her fans and set to be discovered by many more children and their families,” says Campos. “Esther delivers an incisive and yet sympathetic take on the world around us, gently mocking our current society with her fresh, innocent and yet very frank observations about her family, friends and the people she meets every day.”

“STUDIOCANAL continues to deliver a broad portfolio of engaging, high-end drama series with universal themes and stories that viewers, wherever they are in the world, can relate to and enjoy.”

—Beatriz Campos

ZDF Enterprises

Over Water

Over Water / Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem / History of Weapons From ZDF Enterprises’ drama catalog, Over Water features a man with a troubled past who receives a second chance to do right by his family and is faced with old demons and new temptations. “Over Water tells the story of how a former addict can make the wrong choices with the right intentions,” explains Fred Burcksen, the company’s president and CEO. Also from the scripted slate is Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem, an adaptation of a trilogy of best-selling novels. It follows Fredrika Bergman, an unconventional recruit to the special investigations unit in Stockholm. ZDFE.unscripted, meanwhile, has lined up the documentary series History of Weapons, which spotlights weaponry that took leading roles in major battles in history. The Spying Game: Tales from the Cold War was produced by ZDF Digital Medienproduktion in association with ZDF Enterprises for ZDFinfo. The three-part program takes a look at the Cold War era and the rising tensions between East and West. “Our sales team from ZDFE.junior will once more underline its competence as the number one address for successful live-action programs,” Burcksen says. Highlights include The Athena, which follows the journey of a young model whose career implodes when she complains about a famous designer treating her like an object. Zoom the White Dolphin is among the new additions to ZDFE.junior’s animation catalog.

“For a high production value, we work with renowned producers and popular actors—some of the greatest talents of their generation.”

—Fred Burcksen 20 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/31/18 1:42 PM Page 1

WS_0918_DRAMA_REAL_408_NIGHT 9/4/18 1:35 PM Page 2

Sky Vision’s Fortitude.

22 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918_DRAMA_REAL_408_NIGHT 9/4/18 10:31 AM Page 4

Leading distributors tell Mansha Daswani about how their drama investment and distribution strategies are evolving. here are a few words that come up frequently when speaking to executives involved in the international drama business today.

“Talent” and “co-production” are the obvious ones. “Bespoke” is one that’s popping up more and more in conversations about drama investment and windowing strategies. Just because a model worked once doesn’t mean it will work again. Every project requires its own tailored approach.

T

MADE TO ORDER “We are keen to be open, flexible and creative in the ways we get involved in new projects,” states Carlo Dusi, the executive VP of commercial strategy for scripted at Red Arrow Studios International. “We are interested in getting involved at all stages, including acquiring concepts and placing them with production companies, co-funding the acquisition and development of properties to script stage with third-party producers, funding advanced development and packaging preproduction costs and looking at investments in production finance.

We are building strong producer relationships, both from within and outside the group, and have a bespoke approach to the way we become involved in content. We don’t have a rigid model we need to fit to; instead, we can work with each project’s requirements.”

Peter Iacono, president of international television and digital distribution at Lionsgate, expresses a similar view. “Every project has to

be considered individually, and it is imperative to seek out the best models and best partners.

We aren’t married to a set formula or one financing model because every model is a result of multiple moving parts. Sometimes we’re the genesis and find a partner, and sometimes someone else is the genesis who finds us. Thus, it is important to be creatively agile and fluid in dealmaking these days.”

It’s the same story at FremantleMedia International (FMI), where Rebecca Dundon, director of scripted acquisitions, says the company seeks to be a “collaborative partner. We work closely with our production teams at an early stage to ensure that we have a clear and targeted financing strategy that is bespoke to each of the projects. It’s not a case of one size fits all.

We look at co-production, namely from the U.S. or Europe. We look at co-financing opportunities. We do quite a targeted presale campaign for select titles. My big message is, we want to work collaboratively on a budget and financing plan to make sure we maximize returns back to the producer. That could be tax incentives and soft money in each territory or locations we can shoot in to maximize the budget.”

Vanessa Shapiro, the president of worldwide TV distribution and co-production at Gaumont, says the French studio is also eyeing early involvement in shows in order to ramp up its slate.

“We’re getting involved as early as the treatment or even idea phase, followed by securing a good partner to co-develop, co-finance and 9/18 WORLD SCREEN 23

eventually co-produce and then distribute. To secure those rights, you have to get involved as early as possible in the creative process. I have a creative director on my team who works on reading scripts and treatments and identifying great IP—new and interesting ideas that will yield exciting, high-potential projects. We are well prepared and at the ready to jump in and make deals, whether it be an option or as a codeveloper and co-financier.”

While the industry has changed dramatically, some things have stayed the same, reports Rola Bauer, the managing director of STUDIOCANAL TV.

IT TAKES TWO (OR THREE) “Unless you do a global deal with one of those few global players, the model is the same one I’ve been using since I worked for Alliance in Canada going back to 1985,” she says. “After you have found the right narrative, you look for two to three broadcasters or platforms that are creatively similar to each other and that will codevelop and co-finance the material and the production with you. Add some soft money when and where available and a distribution guarantee and you have your model. It’s not rocket science, but it is still very challenging every time to find the right mix.”

Bauer is a pioneer in the co-production model that is now standard operating procedure across the international drama space.

“These productions are more and more expensive, so increasingly we’re looking for

WS_0918_DRAMA_REAL_408_NIGHT 9/4/18 10:33 AM Page 5

In the works for years, BBC Studios’ Les Misérables is a six-part adaptation, by Andrew Davies, of the classic novel that is set to air on BBC One in 2019. partners to come in at the co-production stage,” says Leona Connell, the director of sales at Sky Vision.

“As with most things, preparation is key,” Connell says on how to make the process go off without a hitch. “At the deal stage, it’s important to be clear as to what level of editorial involvement a partner can have. Their input will often be aligned with their level of contribution. If a partner puts in an equal investment, they’ll expect equal editorial say. If they are a minority partner, it’s really important to outline and agree on the level of consultation on scripts, cast, director, etc., and the right to review final cuts.

The worst thing that can happen is to have two partners who believe they have the same amount of editorial say, but this hasn’t been agreed up front. Then at the preproduction stage, you have to be clear about who is responsible for keeping partners informed and asking for approvals. And at the production stage, ensure that any issues are flagged as soon as possible. If there are changes to editorial, everyone should be on board. If there are additional costs, it needs to be clear up front who picks up those costs. It all comes down to communication.”

Red Arrow’s Dusi, whose background is in indie film, stresses the “phenomenal value” that can be derived from working on a project with multiple partners in different territories. “You need to approach it in a sophisticated and experienced manner to avoid problems down the line,” he explains, citing the importance of “extensive creative conversations” at the beginning of a collaboration.

“There should be no misapprehension as to how different parts of the development process will be handled by the partners on the other side,” Dusi continues. “You want to make sure no crucial responsibilities fall through the cracks. It does take a great deal of investment and time and effort at the outset, which pays off if you can flesh everything out before you set off on the mad journey this process often becomes.”

FMI’s Dundon adds that it’s also imperative that you don’t try to force a co-production just because the financial pieces fit.

DOLLARS AND SENSE “We’re looking to be as nimble and creative as we can, but still ensure the key stakeholders are protected,” says Dundon on how FMI manages co-production relationships. “It’s collaboration, it’s planning, and just ensuring the show has effective management, right from the treatment stage through international sales. It doesn’t stop.”

Indeed, the process needed to recoup the spiraling costs of drama involves maximizing a property through as many windows as possible, all the while making sure it’s in the appropriate home from premiere onwards.

“Every show is bespoke, and that’s more the case now than it ever was,” reports Liam Keelan, the director of the scripted portfolio at BBC Studios. “There are so many examples of different ways you can take a show to market. Having an anchor broadcaster is the ideal situation, but there are more and more shows now where we think, we have to back our own instinct on 24 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

this and not have an anchor broadcaster and take it to market with the confidence in the talent behind it. If you’ve got the right talent and a story you believe in, you’re in the slightly better position of then being able to pick and choose where to go and what broadcaster or service best suits the project. It’s about the fit. It’s about the reach. Sometimes you think a show or a piece of talent needs a really wide platform. For others, it’s about the commissioner being a bit more of an incubator. Something like Clerkenwell’s The End of the F***ing World, which ran on E4 and then went to Netflix, popped [after] that slightly slower burn. Every project is different. Every project will get the same level of consideration about what is the best way to take it to market, and what is going to enable it to grow.”

STUDIOCANAL’s Bauer agrees that a windowing strategy must always be project-specific.

“For the global players it is usually not relevant unless you have a linear window after a holdback,” she explains.

WHO GOES FIRST? “The SVOD platforms have changed the landscape of traditional windowing,” says Shapiro at Gaumont, which is currently shopping the linear window for Narcos.

“With Narcos, Netflix has the first window and we have the second in linear. This is the current model the market is experiencing for serialized series. We’re trying to break that windowing, especially now that traditional linear broadcasters are starting to do serialized shows.

So, we could have a series going to linear first

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/30/18 10:54 AM Page 1

WS_0918_DRAMA_REAL_408_NIGHT 9/4/18 10:34 AM Page 6

Red Arrow is bringing Death and Nightingales, an Irish period drama for BBC Two and RTÉ, to MIPCOM. and with a second window following on SVOD. Each market is different. The U.S. is a very different beast than the rest of the world. There’s no general rule of thumb. An edgy, violent or more premium show might fit better as an SVOD first run while other shows might work better with linear as the first window. For each show, we tend to focus on those buyers targeting the first window and everything else will flow from there.”

GLOBAL EXCLUSIVITY Dusi at Red Arrow agrees that the emergence of Netflix and Amazon taking worldwide rights to a project has altered the windowing equation.

“If you’re in the world of a global SVOD deal then you have to look at extracting value from the project in different ways, which then becomes more of an IP-building investment and production play,” he states. “By and large, we tend to be able to window in a very creative way on most of the projects we get involved in. The starting point always tends to be that you look to recoup your investment for that particular territory from the first window and keep subsequent windows for profit. We’ve seen linear broadcasters accept greater flexibility in the sharing of windows with the streamers and that enables enough funding to be generated out of the key territories to sustain the increasing budgets that we’re all working with. What used to be a very regimented landscape in windowing terms is now becoming increasingly fragmented and movable. Every time we sit down and talk to the broadcasters about what their approach is, their policies have shifted. Similarly, the SVOD platforms are becoming more flexible about allowing a coexisting of windows, particularly in the cases where both operators come to the table as co-financiers from the beginning. We’re always keen to make sure there’s a balance between SVOD and linear deals, which helps communicate to the wider market that a particular project can work more broadly in each market than might otherwise be perceived.”

Sky Vision’s Connell reports that broadcasters and platforms increasingly want the premiere rights and as many windows as possible in order to be able to satisfy their audiences’ demands for flexible, convenient viewing options.

“We wish to work with our partners to help them grow their business and grow our brands on their platforms or channels, so we try to be flexible,” she notes. “Then again, we have to make sure that we’re getting the right value.”

Of course, before broadcasters and platforms get into the fiddly details on which rights they can control, they have to be attracted to the idea. And in this multi-language, multifaceted drama landscape, the biggest attraction is that nebulous, difficult-to-define “point of difference.”

“Ultimately, it is all about the narrative and talent,” says Lionsgate’s Iacono. “We partner with the most creative and inspired talent to

deliver captivating and appealing series. In addition, having strong and well-known actors is very helpful for a show to travel internationally.”

Bauer at STUDIOCANAL is on the lookout for topics that will resonate with contemporary audiences. “If I can’t answer the question of a story’s relevance for myself, then I will never be able to find the passion to fight for getting the story produced,” she says. “We also look for worlds and narratives that can travel universally.

Again, it starts with the very simple question: why now? If you can’t answer that, then your chances of having global success are considerably less. The cherry on top is to have at least one name in front of the camera that has international status.”

NAME-DROPPING BBC Studios’ Keelan agrees that recognizable talent, on-screen and off, is increasingly important in a crowded environment. “It used to only be about looking for what commissioners wanted and backing indie production companies. Now, organizations like ours are also going directly to talent, whether it’s directors or writers, and aligning them with production partners. And then doing the same with on-screen talent.”

Red Arrow’s Dusi puts it like this: “It’s very much a name game. So we are focusing on the value of relationships, and concentrating on getting into business with producers we have identified as originators of the highest quality scripted content. We’re very selective about the producer relationships we target. Similarly, we are very clear about the level of writing talent we want to be involved with. That is becoming such a determining factor in being able to find

Gaumont recently began offering up the linear TV rights to Narcos, which is heading into season four on Netflix.

26 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918__Layout 1 9/4/18 9:53 AM Page 1

WS_0918_DRAMA_REAL_408_NIGHT 9/4/18 10:35 AM Page 7

Amazon Prime Video has the first window in Germany for FremantleMedia International’s Deutschland 86, the follow-up to Deutschland 83 from UFA Fiction. homes for the projects we invest in and being able to pull together the increasingly complex financial structures high-end drama requires.”

In terms of subject matter, meanwhile, Sky Vision’s Connell says she’s hearing demand for character-led thrillers and disaster series set in a dystopian future. (“I don’t know if that’s a reflection of the world we live in!” she quips.)

“There’s an ambition for things that feel new,” Connell says, adding that there’s also interest in stories based on existing IP. “People don’t necessarily ask us for programs based on existing IP, but when we present them with such, they do seem to strike a chord.”

BY THE BOOK FMI’s current slate includes a raft of popular book adaptations, among them My Brilliant Friend and The Luminaries. But Dundon says the overall remit is “scale and global diversity. We are looking for great storytellers and brilliant stories that have a fantastic creative team at their heart. We want content that is bold, ambitious, impactful, and that will offer a fresh perspective or push boundaries. [We want to find] creatives who are at the forefront of their genre, bring unique perspectives or want to shine a light on something they might not have been able to do before.”

Gaumont’s Shapiro is finding that more and more linear broadcasters—which have long been committed to procedural drama—are experimenting with shorter-run serialized shows.

“They want to hook an audience over the course of a few weeks by offering a serialized model of a compelling limited series,” Shapiro says. “We were looking at procedurals, but are now also widening our net with a bit more focus

on serialized. The buyers’ needs change very quickly, and we remain proactive in our efforts to stay ahead of their needs and always strive to predict the next big trend. That’s the challenge.”

AHEAD OF THE CURVE Indeed, high-end drama can take a long time to put together, so staying ahead of trends can be difficult.

“Les Misérables is probably an extreme example of that!” says BBC Studios’ Keelan on the Andrew Davies adaptation that has been in the works for years and began filming this year. “We have another one at the moment, The Watch [based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books], which has been in gestation for some time. It’s been greenlit with BBC America on board. Some titles are like that. Some are quicker turnarounds.

[The drama] Brexit is going to be a lot quicker.”

Keelan says that whatever the production or financing timeline, it comes down to “having the conviction and the trust in the story itself and the writing talent behind it. You know that when Andrew Davies adapts a piece like Les Misérables, it’s going to have contemporary resonance. We’re living in times full of turmoil. Les Misérables will have elements on-screen that reflect that contemporary angst.”

Staying ahead of trends also involves sourcing new voices, an initiative that Keelan is deeply involved in at BBC Studios. That process includes “conversations with our indie partners, spotting what our competition is doing, talking to people like Piers Wenger [controller of drama commissioning at the BBC] about who he thinks the up-and-coming talent are. We’re also in the fortunate position of having a lot of continuing series in the U.K.—EastEnders, Holby 28 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

City, Casualty. They’re a fantastic breeding ground for the next new writing talent.”

Another development in scripted that producers and distributors have to keep an eye on, Red Arrow’s Dusi states, is the “move away from the traditional international distribution model. That has made us all think a lot more creatively and constructively about what added value we bring to the table as a full-fledged, full-service studio, and where we can support the development and production process. We’re all becoming more valuable, more experienced partners as a consequence. You only need to look at BBC Worldwide becoming BBC Studios to see that other players are also looking to become more vertically integrated and coordinated. That is a necessary part of remaining competitive in a landscape that is now disrupted by such wealthy operators—but money alone is not enough to be competitive.”

Indeed, as the FAANGs up their budgets and ink more and more exclusive talent deals with producers, all segments of the drama distribution business will need to become more agile and opportunistic.

“Because there’s such diversity out there now, it’s really important to have a range of output,” says Keelan. “It’s not just a range within genres, but also in talent and the stories we’re telling.

Things that are reflecting the world back to the viewer and trying to make sense of the world we’re living in. We’re in a brilliant position of having more and more commissioners coming to the table—Apple, YouTube Premium, many others— and the more traditional broadcasters coming together and looking at innovative ways to get the best talent on-screen. So for us, it’s about backing the best talent and the best range of output.”

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/31/18 12:55 PM Page 1

WS_0918_JR_WSN_0406_RECORD 9/4/18 12:01 PM Page 3

30 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918_JR_WSN_0406_RECORD 9/4/18 12:03 PM Page 4

John Krasinski, Wendell Pierce and Dina Shihabi, the stars of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, along with co-creator Carlton Cuse, talk about bringing the beloved character to life on the small screen.

By Anna Carugati

J

ack Ryan, the central character of Tom Clancy’s novels, is known to millions of fans around the world. He has also been brought to life in several films, including The Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin, Patriot Games with Harrison Ford and The Sum of All Fears with Ben Affleck.

An adaptation for the small screen, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan recently launched on Amazon Prime Video and has already been renewed for a second season. Created by Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland, it stars John Krasinski in the leading role.

Telling the story as an eight-hour series made for the small screen allowed for more storytelling and deeper character development, according to Cuse. “We realized one of the things that define Tom Clancy was that he wrote geopolitical thrillers of the moment,” he said. “While the books were great, they felt dated. So Graham and I decided we would come up with our own story about something that was going on right now. We chose to tell a story about Middle East terrorism and tried to do what Clancy had done in his novels, which was write a big tentpole story but one that was very topical and connected to the world today.”

Cuse and Roland envisioned their Jack Ryan story as a prequel to the stories told in the novels and films. “Our version of the Jack Ryan character is a little bit earlier than the one that we see in The Hunt for Red October,” explained Cuse. “He’s an analyst. He has only been working for the CIA for four years. He’s in the very early part of his career, and we watch his transformation from being a guy who works in a cubicle and writes reports to someone who is now having his first taste of what it’s like to be in the field.”

For Krasinski, who is known for his role as Jim Halpert in the comedy The Office and recently wrote, directed and starred in the film A Quiet Place, the appeal of the Jack Ryan series was the eight-hour format.

“The idea of doing long-form storytelling was the pitch that really got me,” he said. “A movie isn’t the best medium for Jack Ryan because the books are so rich and detail-oriented that there is so much more to mine in the long-form storytelling way. I also loved the idea that we could start at the beginning of Jack Ryan’s career at the CIA and see him in his earliest days in his smallest post and see him grow.”

The writers made some other adjustments to the characters from Clancy’s novels. In the books, James Greer is a highlevel CIA officer. As Cuse explained, he and Roland wanted to see Greer, played by Wendell Pierce, earlier in the story. “We

made him Jack Ryan’s immediate boss so that the two of them could interact and be partners in the story, and we could see the arc of James Greer’s story over time.” A new character to the Jack Ryan world is Hanin, played by Dina Shihabi.

Authenticity was of the utmost importance to Cuse and Roland, who made use of CIA consultants. Pierce said he was impressed and inspired by the real-life CIA agents he met.

“When you are playing a character, you are trying to look into the humanity of whoever you are playing,” he said. “Characters are not an idea or a plot point in the story. You are trying to build someone who is three-dimensional. I was able to do that with the help of this one particular retired officer. We have become friends. I run things by him; I check in with him all the time. That is the thing that has really helped me bring my version of James Greer to life.”

“As John said, one of the things that appealed to us was having eight hours to tell our story instead of two, which allowed us to get a lot deeper into the political side of the geopolitical thriller and further break down some of the reasons why we have Middle East terrorism,” explained Cuse. “We’ve had a lot of shows in the spy genre that are about antiheroes. The difference with Jack Ryan is that he is a classic hero. He is that person that we all hope stands between us and the terrorists of the world. That is something that is very relatable all around the world today.”

Terrorism is just one of the topics of the series. “We felt we had an opportunity with this show to not just do a summer tentpole action show but also to provide commentary on some of the issues of our time,” said Cuse. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan provides a different view of terrorism with the story of Hanin, the wife of a terrorist, who escapes and winds up in a group of refugees from Syria. This storyline sheds light on the plight of refugees, and, as Cuse explained, “perhaps makes people think about refugees in a different way or see a more complete picture of what that experience is like.”

For Shihabi, the role of Hanin offered an exciting opportunity. “Most of the time when women from the Middle East are portrayed in the media, they are portrayed as victims,” she said. “They have no names. They are in terrible distress. But what Carlton and Graham created is a smart, powerful woman. She is a mother who will do anything she can to take care of her kids. She is so badass; she fights and figures out ways intellectually and emotionally to protect the people she loves the most. It was an incredibly wonderful, satisfying and challenging experience.”

9/18 WORLD SCREEN 31

WS_0918_SIFF_WSN_0406_RECORD 9/4/18 12:04 PM Page 3

32 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918_SIFF_WSN_0406_RECORD 9/4/18 12:05 PM Page 4

Wouldn’t we all want a Wendy Rhoades in our lives? Wendy, played by Maggie Siff, is the in-house performance coach at Axe Capital in the Showtime series Billions. She uses her laser-sharp perception and understanding of human nature to help employees and founder Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, played by Damian Lewis, be their best selves, which in their case means generating millions of dollars daily. Wendy is also the wife of Axe’s archrival, U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades, played by Paul Giamatti. Caught between these two Alpha males, Wendy artfully navigates the needs of both, including her husband’s predilection for S&M. Siff, who was previously on Sons of Anarchy and Mad Men, relishes the character of Wendy and the privilege of working

By Anna Carugati alongside such brilliant actors.

WS: What research did you have to do for the role of Wendy? I interviewed Damian and he told me he met with some hedge fund managers. By the way, I love Wendy! I want her in my life!

SIFF: I know, I do, too! I didn’t have to do the research that Damian did. Thankfully, Wendy does not have to deal in those financial waters. Wendy is such an amalgam of many different things. I talked to as many people as I could. I did a lot of research with a psychotherapist performance coach. I read a lot of Ari Kiev, who was famously Steve Cohen’s in-house psychiatrist [Cohen is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors]. Then I talked to some people who did approximately what Wendy does. Nobody is really Wendy out there in the world, though. The [writers] take a lot of inspiration from [author and life coach] Tony Robbins, so I went down a Tony Robbins rabbit hole and had a phone interview with him. I did a lot of research on S&M and we have a BDSM [bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism] consultant.

WS: Wendy is caught between two very strong male figures. How does she navigate that?

SIFF: Everybody on the show is so smart, but she is always a slight step ahead of everyone, including Axe and Chuck.

Both of them can’t help themselves. They both have places and people and environments where their intelligence falls away, and they act viscerally, especially Axe. Axe is the king of acting impulsively in spite of himself. Because of Wendy’s training and the way she is oriented, she is a lot more preternaturally calm. She can often see a little bit further than other people can, especially when it comes to the realm of impulse and emotions. It’s incredibly fun because she is playing with people who are brilliant and who, in her lingo, are peak performing. That gives her a thrill. The darker part of her nature is that she is very intoxicated by that kind of power and brilliance and being able to play alongside that power.

Axe and Chuck are unique and Wendy’s relationships with them are totally different. I think Wendy is actually 9/18 WORLD SCREEN 33

WS_0918_SIFF_WSN_0406_RECORD 9/4/18 12:05 PM Page 5

WS: Do you like Wendy?

SIFF: I love Wendy. You have to like your character and be a strong advocate for the character. Even Damian and Paul, who are playing characters that are so dubious, play them with such relish because they love their characters. That’s the most important thing, especially in this world where the themes are serious, you have to have fun and bring that sense of play.

WS: The intellectual level of the dialogue is amazing! More than half of what Taylor and the other financial analysts say flies right over my head.

SIFF: They are so smart and everybody talks so fast. It’s all heightened—even the intelligence and the rate at which people think and speak. The show has got this lift to it that keeps you going. Even though [the financial deals are hard to understand] it keeps you viscerally engaged.

Maggie Siff plays Wendy Rhoades, a psychiatrist by trade, in the Showtime hit Billions, which has been renewed for a fourth season.

more tender with Axe; she feels he is a little more delicate in some ways than Chuck is. And she’s married to Chuck, so she takes her gloves off with him a little bit more than she does with Axe. WS: Acting with those two must be a dream come true.

SIFF: They are both amazing—amazing actors, amazing human beings. They are funny and irreverent. They are not nearly as Alpha as their characters! Luckily, it falls away fast when the cameras aren’t rolling.

WS: Have the #MeToo movement and election-year discussions about women’s rights changed your or the writers’ perceptions of Wendy’s role in between these two strong men?

SIFF: I feel like our show is evolving with the times. I haven’t had an explicit conversation with them about that in particular. There has been the introduction of a gender non-binary character in our show, Taylor, played by Asia Kate Dillon. And I think it’s done something wonderful on our show that I haven’t been able to fully articulate. Before it felt like the show was [all about] Alpha men and Alpha women, and there was this male-female polarity between Wendy-Lara [Axelrod] and Axe-Chuck. The introduction of Taylor has shaken up the foundation and thrown everybody into a new light.

I have always wanted to see Wendy strike out on her own but Wendy also needs to stay within the narrative. In terms of being a #MeToo heroine, she leaves both guys and goes off and does her own thing at the end of the first season. But I think [the writers] want her in the story. Something that they have been playing with and I have advocated for is how do you see Wendy begin to be a player in the world of the narrative. That’s why she is not so morally on the up and up anymore. I think it makes her a more dimensional character and a more active character in the story, which is different from being a heroine. But I think that’s interesting. I don’t necessarily need to see female characters being heroines. I just want to see more of them. I just want to see more aspects of the character; I want to see them at play more.

To me, that’s what’s really important.

34 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS: There is more to S&M than meets the eye, isn’t there?

I’ve read that it’s also about caring for somebody.

SIFF: Our consultant emphasizes that whenever she talks to us. And that’s what I think makes it a really interesting component of Wendy and Chuck’s marriage. The way we conceive of it is this is something that Chuck really needs. And Wendy, because of who she is fundamentally but also because of her training, feels that she can call on that part of herself. I think she discovers that it’s a part of herself that she enjoys and is quite good at. It comes perhaps a little more naturally than she thought it would.

So they make room for that in their marriage and it is an expression of care. When we are working on those scenes, the consultant says you are using elements of pain, but there is a tickle preceding that. And the alternation between those things is ultimately an act of caring for somebody.

WS: When you first read the S&M scenes, did you think, my goodness how can I do these?

SIFF: Yes, I have a lot of natural modesty. There is stuff I don’t want to do in front of the camera. So it was important to me to have a conversation with the powers that be about what the expectations were, what the idea was going forward. I didn’t want it to be sensationalistic. I felt reassured that I wouldn’t be asked to do anything I was uncomfortable doing. [These scenes] are about exploring an element of the marriage and they are used pretty sparingly. I think there was only one scene this whole season. But they are hard to do. They are technically challenging.

WS: I imagine there is a lot of choreography.

SIFF: There is a lot of choreography. There are five-inch heels and thigh high boots! I don’t want to hurt Paul. He usually lies there, and I do a lot of the choreography. And there are also very intimate scenes, and they are challenging.

WS: At the end of season three, where are Wendy, Chuck and Axe? SIFF: All of the alliances have shifted by the end of the season. I would also say Wendy has taken a slide toward the dark side a little bit. Anything goes. The season ends with Chuck, Axe and Wendy coming together. It sets up a really exciting scenario for next season.

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/30/18 10:52 AM Page 1

WS_0918_GRUFFUDD_WSN_0406_RECORD 9/4/18 12:06 PM Page 3

36 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS_0918_GRUFFUDD_WSN_0406_RECORD 9/4/18 12:07 PM Page 4

Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd starred in several TV movies in the U.K. before getting exposure to an international audience as fifth officer Harold Lowe in Titanic. He then starred in the Horatio Hornblower TV movies, several feature films, including Black Hawk Down and Fantastic Four, and numerous TV series, including Forever.

Most recently, he’s been in the unnerving she said-he said thriller Liar and the procedural Harrow, about a forensic pathologist. He talks to World Screen about the

By Anna Carugati abundant opportunities television is offering actors.

WS: What appealed to you about Harrow?

GRUFFUDD: I had finished shooting Liar. I’d come home to L.A., and I had a couple of scripts that people were interested in, and Harrow was one of them. I was reluctant to pick it up because it was about a forensic pathologist; I had played a forensic pathologist [in the series Forever], and one of the people involved in Harrow had been involved in Forever as well. So I thought, Oh my, I’m going to be typecast. But once I read the script, I just couldn’t put it down. It was such a wonderfully rounded three-dimensional character; every character was, even in the pilot. The story and the twist at the end of the pilot just grabbed me. Even though it shot in Brisbane, Australia, and it meant that I was going to be away from my family for five months, it was kind of a no-brainer, just based on the script and the character. I had a very lucky year last year going from a great script with Liar to another great script. I think the character and the humor in this show are what attracted me.

WS: Tell us about Dr. Daniel Harrow.

GRUFFUDD: Stephen M. Irwin, our scribe, wrote all ten episodes and co-wrote some of them with Leigh McGrath, one of the creators. We always use analogies because they help convey character; Dr. Harrow is a bit like [House’s] Dr. House, quite curmudgeonly. He’s also like [Quincy, M.E.’s Dr.] Quincy; there are very lighthearted moments in Harrow. The gallows humor among all the characters in the morgue is wonderful. Then there is the tough love he has to go through with his teenage daughter being estranged and with his ex-wife. Then you add into the mix all the interesting cases that are presented every week, plus the one over-arching case of the entire series, which is a bunch of bones that are presented to him at the end of the pilot. We discover he had something to do with these bones. The pilot script was so well-rounded and encompassed all those things with a beautiful twist.

WS: You’ve done television and feature films. Do you have a preference? What are the different challenges?

GRUFFUDD: It’s been such a long time since I’ve done a movie.

It’s interesting, there was a time when I was playing leads in movies, and as you know, nowadays there are either tentpole movies [or independent movies]. But all those delicious independents have global movie stars in them, so it’s impossible to make a living as an actor in movies these days. But thank the Lord for television! There is a wealth of content out there, and a wealth of scripts. I can’t even keep up with the shows that I want to watch, let alone all the shows that are out there; we are spoiled for choice. We’ve been bombarded with great series after great series. That’s where the work is, that’s where the consistency is, if we’re going to talk about economics.

WS: Do you have to like a character to play him?

GRUFFUDD: Certainly when you are discovering the character, you have to love the character otherwise you can’t do him justice. That becomes hard when you are playing someone like Andrew Earlham, as I did in Liar, who was a rapist.

WS: He was creepy!

GRUFFUDD: It was a very creepy role. You know what’s interesting? People who responded well to the show and who responded well to what I did in the show [have said to me,] “How did you do that? That was incredible. We’ve never seen you do that.” Interestingly enough, I didn’t do anything. I was charming and myself the entire time. It’s because the audience knows what Andrew’s up to that made it creepier. I didn’t have to find a “dark evil” character. I was just charming, and you the viewer knew what I had just done.

WS: And that was so unsettling.

GRUFFUDD: Exactly, I was made to look a far better actor than I am! Joanne Froggatt [who plays Laura] and I gave [the subject matter] its reverence in every scene. And the scene I had with the cop, that was a tough one, especially since we are reading so much about all these guys [who have assaulted women].

Rape is not sexual; it’s about control and power.

9/18 WORLD SCREEN 37

WS_0918_FRED_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:08 PM Page 1

IN THE NEWS

into one department for unscripted content as of January 2018. It was because there was some overlap between the two genres. And we felt that there were many synergies in terms of the combined sales power and better acquisition opportunities. We’re very strong in the field of documentary series and we want to improve ourselves when it comes to format sales. We have attractive formats, but they were never the highest priority. That’s why we’re trying to now put our focus on that. We have a hugely successful German format called Cash or Trash, which runs on ZDF every day. We’re taking it abroad together with Warner Bros., just as we are doing with Banijay on our classic format Wanna Bet? WS: What are some of the new developments in your traditional doc business?

BURCKSEN: In general, part of the strategy that we are rolling out is to get more third-party content. What we do with our network ZDF can’t be done any better. So, if we want to grow, we need third-party content. These programs don’t need to run on ZDF. That’s an essential element of our strategy that should bring us growth. The second priority is we’re investing more in development.

We’ve always invested in programs as a co-producer or as a gap-financier. We’re now developing ourselves, which is an exciting element.

By Mansha Daswani

Fred Burcksen joined ZDF Enterprises just a few years after its creation as the commercial arm of German pubcaster ZDF. Rising through the ranks from senior sales manager all the way up to executive VP and COO, Burcksen succeeded Alexander Coridass as the president and CEO of the group earlier this year. For Burcksen it’s business as usual at ZDF Enterprises as his teams execute on the “ZDF Enterprises 2020” strategic plan. But that certainly doesn’t mean complacency as the company navigates the increasingly complex media landscape worldwide. While continuing to license its extensive content catalog—spanning drama, kids and unscripted—to broadcasters and platforms worldwide, ZDF Enterprises has stepped up its co-production activities and is eyeing more opportunities for third-party content. It is also looking at expanding the portfolio of companies in which it holds stakes on the heels of forming a joint venture with Beta Film and picking up an interest in World Media Rights in the U.K. Burcksen tells World Screen about what’s driving ZDF Enterprises’ business and outlines his priorities for the year ahead.

WS: You recently announced a reorganization of the factual and entertainment divisions. Why was this an important move?

BURCKSEN: We decided, as part of ZDF Enterprises 2020, to merge our factual and entertainment divisions 38 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS: How has your drama strategy evolved as the market has become even more competitive?

BURCKSEN: Here too we have, over the last four to five years, invested more and more in our own development. The latest initiative was the founding of a company with Beta Film. Intaglio Films is a fifty-fifty joint venture in Berlin led by Frank Doelger, a U.S. showrunner whose credits include Games of Thrones.

He’s exclusively tied to our company and is developing formats for us and our network. We also have the development entity G5 fiction with Uwe Kersken. And we’re working on establishing a third entity. These are not production companies; these are development units. That’s part of the strategy. It’s also about thirdparty content. So the drama department has acquired a lot of formats and series from international broadcasters and production companies that we invested in without knowing who the German broadcaster is going to be.

WS: What are some of the qualities you look for in drama projects that can travel?

BURCKSEN: It’s the hardest question of all—if we knew [the right answer] we would have only successes and no failures!

It’s high-end, it’s content that cannot be produced or financed by one party alone. They are mostly horizontally told stories. Crime is probably the easiest genre to sell globally. The goal is to be eclectic. And then it comes down to what we bump into or what’s being offered to us. We try to get a perfect mix out of these projects.

WS_0918_FRED_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:44 PM Page 2

WS: What about in the documentary space—what kinds of third-party projects are you looking to invest in?

BURCKSEN: We try to focus on history, science and wildlife. Within these traditional genres, we’re looking for popular series—pop science, not only blue-chip wildlife, an exciting personality that walks through the desert. Projects that make you fall in love with a character. The question is: is that factual or entertainment?

That’s why we merged the two genres.

WS: On the kids’ side, are you continuing to invest in high-end tween series?

BURCKSEN: Heavily. We shouldn’t neglect the animation and the preschool series we have, but we’re best known for the live-action series. That’s going to be the primary focus, again together with our network ZDF. But we’ll sometimes go for a project without the backup of our network.

WS: Across the genres you operate in, co-productions have been essential. What are some of the things you’ve learned about managing those complex relationships?

BURCKSEN: What we’ve learned is that you need to trust the talent, you need to trust the writers, you need to trust the director or the showrunner. And try not to get in their way. You want to be involved, you want to read the scripts, you want to make notes—we still do that because we want to be thorough—but in the end, we’ll leave it up to the talent. That’s the experience we’ve had over the last couple of years. It has worked well.

independence from the major suppliers. Players like Warner Bros., Endemol Shine or UFA are important program suppliers to ZDF, but you want a part of this business to be within your own group. You want to bind the talent, to have some creative control over things. We are always looking to strengthen our portfolio of companies. We’d love to have a strong production company in Berlin, for instance. We’re doing it slowly. We’re very healthy, so one step at a time.

WS: What are some of your other significant growth opportunities in the one to two years ahead?

BURCKSEN: We’d like to add one or two companies to our portfolio. In distribution, the key element is thirdparty content. Again, what we do with our network can’t be done much better in terms of revenue and profit—it’s very efficient and very effective. So if we need to grow, we need to find third-party content.

That’s always been an element in our business, but we’re giving it a lot more focus than we did in the last couple of years. The second strategic element that should bring us growth is investing heavily in our own online channels. We launched three channels on Amazon in Germany, we have around a dozen on YouTube and, by the end of the year, we want to have some 25 channels. That’s a strong focus.

The main message is, we are positioned very well.

We’ve got a strategic plan that we are following. Everything looks very promising.

WS: What’s your overall approach to managing the windowing strategy on a show?

BURCKSEN: It’s a difficult issue. And probably the answer will be a different one in six months and was a different one six months ago. We used to have this discussion when we talked about pay TV and free TV. Now we’re talking about linear and nonlinear. The key question is, who goes first? That has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. It’s fair to say that usually, if our network is involved, we’re always looking for a first run for ZDF. If our network is not involved, of course, we’re more flexible, and then it just comes down to the numbers. It’s a process.

WS: What role does M&A play for ZDF Enterprises as you expand your business?

BURCKSEN: We have two businesses under this roof. One is the distribution, which we’ve discussed. The other one is the participation in production companies. We are a shareholder in some 16 companies—15 of them are German. We are also very proud of our first international participation— we bought a share in the London-based production company World Media Rights. The goal within Germany or German-speaking territories is that, from the perspective of the network we represent, we want to have within the ZDF Enterprises group a share of what is commissioned by ZDF. That’s strategically important to get some 9/18 WORLD SCREEN 39

Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem is the latest addition to ZDF Enterprises’ slate of Scandi crime dramas.

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/30/18 11:01 AM Page 1

WS_0918_BOATR_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:10 PM Page 1

From left: Ivan Schneeberg, David Fortier and John Young.

ROCKING THE BOAT David Fortier, Ivan Schneeberg and John Young tell World Screen about their vision for building Boat Rocker Media into a multi-genre global indie. By Mansha Daswani n today’s ever more consolidated media landscape, there are generally two paths available to independent producers: stay in your lane as you go it alone, or be subsumed into a global federation. David Fortier, Ivan Schneeberg and John Young opted for a different route entirely—they chose to create a brand-new global entertainment company, Boat Rocker Media.

The foundation was Temple Street Productions, the well-regarded Canadian production outfit founded by Fortier and Schneeberg that made global ripples with shows like the critically acclaimed drama Orphan Black and tween series The Next Step.

“We were a production company and we tried to make as many shows as we could, building from one show to the next,” says Fortier, who today serves as co-executive chairman at Boat Rocker Media alongside Schneeberg. “As the company grew, we realized that we needed to deal with some of the vagaries of production. We had to build an infrastructure and to do that we needed capital. So we took on investment from Fairfax Financial. Boat Rocker is a result of

I

the capital investment and building the company from there.”

ORIGIN STORY That happened in 2016, but Schneeberg says that Temple Street always wanted to be much more than a Canadian production company, even when “there was nothing—no office, no staff, no shows. We wanted to be a media company based in Canada. We are very proud Canadians; we’re very proud to be building a company here. But we always wanted to make content that traveled outside of Canada. We wanted to use the system that exists here to build great content, but we didn’t want to be making stuff that was only consumable by the Canadian marketplace. Even from that moment of inception, we always aspired to be a global business. We’re continuing down that road. We first started making kids’ TV, then we moved into adult comedy, drama with Being Erica and [format adaptations with] the Canadian version of Next Top Model. Even when we were two, three, four, five, six people, we always made shows in multiple genres. It’s useful to be diversified in terms of the content you make. Now we’re thinking about 9/18 WORLD SCREEN 41

diversified content that can transform into meaningful brands that can be exploited around the world and hopefully springboard out into other pieces of IP.” To achieve its global ambitions, Boat Rocker Media has been steadily amassing a portfolio of program rights libraries and production companies. Each fits into one of the company’s four pillars: Studios (led by Schneeberg and Fortier as co-presidents), Rights (helmed by Jon Rutherford), Brands and Ventures.

“With over 600 employees in different areas, we’re constantly looking at how best to align the organization with the goals that we have,” says Young, the CEO of Boat Rocker Media.

“For the moment, with Studios, Brands, Rights and Ventures, we feel we have the ability for each of these areas to act on their own, develop content and build revenue streams on their own, but equally, make sure they all work together. We’re creating an integrated system.

We can exploit and monetize the intellectual property that we’re creating. The structure certainly allows us to increase the size of our teams and add great content partners, as we have been doing with the acquisitions of late.

The combination of these various divisions

WS_0918_BOATR_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:11 PM Page 2

business from its Canadian base into a broader international media company.”

One particular area of focus, Schneeberg explains, is the U.S. “At the top of the list would be to have a more meaningful presence there.

That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t take an opportunity seriously anywhere else.”

Boat Rocker’s investments to date have significantly upped its game in both the factual and kids’ arenas. Drama remains important, but Schneeberg notes that the company approaches the genre carefully.

DRAMATIC APPROACH

Late Nite Eats is the first original series to come from Boat Rocker’s factual outfit Crooked Horse Productions. puts us in the best position we can be in to provide that 360-degree service, if you will, for the content we have and the content we’re creating.”

PIECE BY PIECE The M&A activity has chugged along at a steady pace since Boat Rocker’s creation in early 2016. On the content-creation side, the company acquired Radical Sheep Productions— which would form the kids’ and family arm of Boat Rocker Studios—and Jam Filled Entertainment, and later made an investment in Insight Productions. Boat Rocker Rights, meanwhile, has been snapping up content libraries, picking up the Mountain Road Productions slate, Peace Point Rights, Proper Television and Proper Rights, and FremantleMedia Kids & Family. There has also been organic growth, including the creation of Crooked Horse Productions as a dedicated factual outfit, and partnerships with Fisher-Price and Mobius.Lab Productions.

On the company’s expansion strategy, Young notes, “First and foremost it starts with finding the right people to be a fit for the culture and the organization we want to be. And [it’s about] the strength of their businesses; the ability of those businesses to continue growing and sustaining revenues. To date, we’ve been very fortunate in partnering with and acquiring companies that have been great fits for our organization and have gone from strength to strength.”

Schneeberg adds, “We look at what we need.

We’re trying to build a global media business and a global brands business. [We look at] what we can add, whether it’s in terms of a service we provide or a genre we’re not in or a geographical area we don’t have a foothold in. Look at our acquisition of Jam Filled Entertainment.

We had always wanted to be active in animation and animation services. It’s not an easy business to start in, you have to have a certain expertise. With Jam Filled, we saw we were very much simpatico with the leadership of that company. By adding that business we had a meaningful presence in animation and animation services that we could build on by buying the business of Arc Productions out of receivership. We have a strong kids’ business, but in buying the FremantleMedia Kids & Family portfolio, we were able to get a nice foothold in Europe, in London in particular.

So when we’re looking at acquisitions, we want something that will add to the business, will expand the business, will make it stronger, either in an area or an area of the world.”

Young stresses that it’s about investing in entities that will “strengthen our portfolio, our production capacity, or the ability to provide complementary benefits to our existing business.” As such, “the next acquisitions can come in all sorts of different areas. There are areas we’re not in that we’ll be looking to expand into. That could include talent management.

Nothing is off the table as we look to build the 42 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

“The challenge with drama is it’s really expensive. And so the risk proposition is a lot higher.

Pursuing too aggressively into buying and trying to sell drama has been the downfall of a lot of rights’ management companies. So we’re cautious, and we don’t want to do anything that will damage our business. But we’re also excited about the idea of investing in our own shows. We have a deep drama slate and some really exciting shows coming up. Our starting point will always be for Jon Rutherford’s team at Boat Rocker Rights to distribute those shows. But it doesn’t mean that we aren’t open to partnering [with other distributors]. There may well be situations where shows are either too expensive or aren’t right for the Rights portfolio, and in those instances, we’ll still be looking to partner. We’re not 100 percent there yet where we can fully fund every drama or scripted series we’re going to make. But that’s the endgame, that’s where we want to get to.”

As the Boat Rocker team navigates the ups and downs of the global media business, they are also keeping a watchful eye on changes at home as the Canadian industry undergoes significant shifts.

“We’re seeing a lot of changes in the broadcast landscape,” Young says. “We’re seeing consolidation. We’re seeing the ad revenues declining for the linear broadcasters. Competition is coming in from other platforms. The challenge of uncertainty gives us an opportunity to try to create new partnerships to strengthen the foundation of our company here in Canada, while at the same time expanding to the U.S. and U.K. and other regions.”

Fortier adds that there’s also an opportunity to foster deeper ties with talent. “Canadian production companies and studios have been making high-quality content for a number of years now. That has created a much larger talent pool, on the writing side, on the acting side, on the directing side. We’re working with more experienced talent and their representatives, and we’re able to package them in a way we weren’t able to do before.”

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/31/18 12:54 PM Page 1

WS_0918_SPOTLIGHT_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:12 PM Page 1

SPOTLIGHT

different characters. We decided that 50 percent of it should be a French resistance story told on the land. We took the production into Europe; not just in France and Germany but also the Czech Republic and Malta. When having the scripts written, we mixed German, U.K. and French writers. That gave the project a very balanced view. It was a challenge in many ways. The scripts were written in their mother tongues and then translated into English. A lot of the production meetings were trilingual.

There were a lot of early-morning calls for us, and a number of transatlantic visits to the various sets in Europe.

Das Boot is a big co-production project for us. Over the summer we made a lot of good presales to Europe, the U.S., Latin America and parts of the Asia Pacific, getting the first-window deals done. Because the world is fragmented, there’s a huge amount of value in secondand third-window deals. MIPCOM is an ideal opportunity to engage all of those diverse players.

By Mansha Daswani

Later this year, Sky platforms in Germany, Austria, Italy and the U.K. will premiere Das Boot. The much-anticipated follow-up to Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 movie—adapted from the novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim—marks the first non-English-language co-production for Sonar Entertainment. As the president of global distribution and co-productions at the U.S. indie, David Ellender is leading Sonar’s efforts in the international scripted landscape. He shares with World Screen his views on drama trends and successful collaboration models.

WS: How did Sonar Entertainment come to be involved in Das Boot?

ELLENDER: Bavaria Fiction owns the underlying rights to the book and the original 1981 Wolfgang Petersen movie. Sky Deutschland came on board, and then we followed very shortly after. This was at the very early stage—it was more an idea rather than a fleshed-out project. We didn’t want to do a remake or sequel. We wanted to be true to the material by creating another U-boat mission, and then taking it into a new world with 44 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS: As you move forward with your co-pro strategy, are you looking to employ a similar model as the one for Das Boot?

ELLENDER: All of our dramas have been constructed differently. We focus on having a broad development portfolio—something for every type of platform, from streamers to premium to basic cable to free-to-air channels. We have a significant U.S. focus, but we’re also looking for co-production or straight-to-distribution projects in the international market. First and foremost, we’re looking for great stories and great storytellers, and then from that we’ll determine, what does the structure of this project look like? We don’t necessarily bring a cookie-cutter approach to what we’re going to do because the partners will vary on each project. If it sits on a streamer, it will look very different from a project on basic cable. So we have to be pragmatic and to some degree also a little bit opportunistic. The landscape is continually changing with new platforms and new opportunities with new partners.

WS: What lessons have you learned from the Das Boot experience about successfully managing co-pro relationships?

ELLENDER: Two to three partners is probably ideal, certainly on a project like Das Boot. When we came together, we all had the same vision. The very first meeting was very much about, where do we see this going? What shouldn’t it be and why? Having that dialogue, we were all then facing in the right direction. We’re all cognizant of some of the failings of cross-border co-productions historically. We wanted to make sure that we created something that would work for the Sky platforms in Europe and universally without losing the key elements that we wanted to capture in the drama. We paired Johannes W. Betz, a great German showrunner and

WS_0918_SPOTLIGHT_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:45 PM Page 2

writer, with Tony Saint, a U.K. writer, and then worked with them on putting a writers’ room together with other nationalities. All of these elements were key, and communication—constantly communicating, regardless of physical distance from Munich, where the writers’ room was based. This [model] is very much the future. Budget sizes are increasing. These projects need more than one or two partners. That’s just the reality if you’re making high-end, expensive drama.

WS: What considerations do you take into account when devising the distribution strategy for each project?

ELLENDER: Once you have your initial anchor platform you start to think, where will this naturally sit internationally? Will it be with a premium pay or streaming platform? Are there elements of this that will work for a free-to-air? At the outset, one has to weigh up the landscape as you see it that day—which can, of course, be 15 to 18 months before it will be screened. So you’re trying to anticipate what the marketplace will look like. And the market moves very quickly with new platforms coming into existence or existing traditional platforms changing their branding or their approach to the market.

And then you’ve got to look at what the secondary window will be. So if it’s a streaming platform or premium pay, then how do the other windows fit in? The competition is very intense in certain markets. And then you look at the other rights you have and the growing plethora of outlets. The free-to-air platforms are growing their digital offerings. They’re not just looking at their linear platform; they’re looking at their digital platforms to acquire content for. And then you may have basic-cable channels following that. So we look at this rich mosaic and then try to piece together where we think we get the best outcome.

It’s about talent, brands and franchises—something that already has a tailwind or a fan base. Mr. Mercedes is based on the Stephen King trilogy. The 1981 Das Boot movie still plays around the world. The project we have with Netflix—Watergate from Smokehouse—you know what you’re going to get. That’s not to say there isn’t room for original pieces like The Hunt, a 1970s Nazi hunter story set in New York. It’s one of Jordan Peele’s first big television pieces after Get Out. His unique view of the world is something that can be marketed

by Amazon. David E. Kelley is one of those few showrunners that does have a name around the world, in our industry and for consumers as well. Those elements are increasingly important. You don’t want to be in the middle ground of a “good drama,” because then you’re just one of 30, 40, 50 good dramas, and it’s a crapshoot as to whether your show will be bought.

We’re trying to find a marketing or consumer hook along with great material. It’s about elevating the material to make sure that you can package it in such a way that you can make it head and shoulders above other things in the marketplace.

WS: Are you looking to enter into talent or output deals with producers outside of the U.S.?

ELLENDER: We are talking to a number of companies outside of the U.S. about first-look deals, one in Asia and one in Europe. We also have individual projects, including one in Australia that’s been greenlit by ABC.

WS: What trends do you see affecting your drama business in the coming year?

ELLENDER: For us in high-end quality drama, it’s been about brands, franchises or talent-driven pieces.

We had The Shannara Chronicles with Jon Favreau, an acclaimed Hollywood film producer and director; Mr. Mercedes with David E. Kelley; Taboo with Scott Free and Tom Hardy; and The Son for AMC with Pierce Brosnan. We have an output deal with Robert Downey Jr.’s Team Downey. We have The Hunt from Jordan Peele, the Oscarwinning writer and director of Get Out. We’ve developed a series on Watergate with George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures. We’ve announced a first-look deal with acclaimed Hollywood producer Michael Shamberg.

9/18 WORLD SCREEN 45

Das Boot marks Sonar’s first nonEnglish-language co-production.

WS_0918_KING_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:14 PM Page 1

BEHIND THE SCENES

we came on board. I would say the show didn’t really find its reason to be until two things happened: first, Michelle came up with the idea that Christine Baranski’s character, Diane Lockhart, goes to an African-American firm, because the show was really supposed to be a comment on and a following of the Black Lives Matter movement in America.

Second, Trump’s election seemed to give the show a greater reason to be other than just a spin-off of The Good Wife.

WS: How do you incorporate topics from the news and how far ahead do you write? You were spot-on with everything that was happening! Did you have a crystal ball?

MICHELLE: No crystal ball but in the case of season two and the politics, we knew these characters were very political, so there is no way they are not going to be talking about politics. As for what’s going to happen, the [topics] are evergreen.

ROBERT: When we start the year, we’re writing three months before broadcast, and at the end of the season we’re writing three weeks before broadcast. So the average is probably about a month and a half before broadcast.

The news cycle is changing so fast these days that there is always the chance you will be behind the curve. As Michelle has said, you are kind of guessing that the peepee tape will still be in the news, unless it’s found. And you are also guessing that #MeToo is going to have some kind of presence and you are just betting that the argument about it won’t change radically. It’s that month-and-a-half gap that you are always worried about.

By Anna Carugati

Best known for creating the critically acclaimed CBS legal drama The Good Wife, which interwove topical issues and serialized story arcs across a procedural show, Robert and Michelle King are now supplying even more acerbic and pointed commentary to subjects pulled from the headlines in The Good Fight. The series, which is available on the streaming service CBS All Access, centers on litigator Diane Lockhart, played by Christine Baranski. It blends drama and comedy in legal stories that provide a deep dive into the dangers and absurdities of some of today’s current events.

WS: How did The Good Fight come about?

ROBERT: When we finished The Good Wife there were 300 crewmembers that were like a family. A lot of them had been there since the beginning; in fact, marriages came out of The Good Wife. At the end of that run, since we were the ones walking away from it, there was this urging by one of the executive producers, why don’t you continue it as a streaming show? You don’t have to run the show; you can get someone else to run it. That was the first instinct. So it started purely as, what is the way to keep the family together while we could go off and do other stuff? Then the person who we brought in didn’t work out for many reasons, and 46 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

WS: What creative freedoms do you have working for a streaming service as opposed to broadcast?

ROBERT: The advantages are language. Look, I think people swear too much on TV already, but there is a heightening factor to certain words and a reality factor. We try to use it [when appropriate] until you get to the last episode where it’s nonstop swearing because Lucca Quinn is giving birth.

Also, some of the #MeToo stories required nudity. There was one story inspired by the Bachelor in Paradise [alleged misconduct] situation, so that required some nudity in order to talk about coercion and the fine line of coercion.

WS: How do you work together?

ROBERT: We start at the keyboard together, but I type and Michelle looks over my shoulders. And from then on, I take over the rewrites, and producing-wise Michelle is involved with casting, which is a big part of it, and wardrobe.

MICHELLE: And dealing with the network. Robert is working with the editors, and we are both in the writers’ room.

ROBERT: Because of the needs of showrunning, we divide ourselves up.

WS: Are you still based in L.A. as you were with The Good Wife?

WS_0918_KING_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:14 PM Page 2

MICHELLE: We used to be. Now we are in New York [along with] the writers, actors and editors.

ROBERT: Now the difficulty will be we have a new show on Showtime called Your Honor, which will be based in L.A. MICHELLE: We are only executive producing that. Peter Moffat, who is a fantastic British writer, is running it and writing it. Liz Glotzer, who is the head of our TV company, is very hands-on producing it. She is also in L.A. WS: Tell us about Your Honor.

ROBERT: It is an Israeli format about a judge in New Orleans who is probably the most responsible, moral, ethical man. He is a widower and his son, while driving, reaches for his inhaler because he has asthma, hits a motorcyclist and kills him immediately. No one sees it, so he runs. The show is about what you do for your family. Even though you are the most moral and upstanding person, do you want to see your son go through everything he would go through?

WS: How have you seen the role of the showrunner evolve over the years?

MICHELLE: What has evolved maybe even more than the role is the fact that anyone is interested in the role and that people talk about it.

ROBERT: As for the history of the showrunner, it’s not a word in anybody’s contract. It is a term of art that was created by John Wells in the ER days. What’s fascinating about it is there are a lot of executive producers on a show yet there is nothing in the credits to tell you who the showrunner is. But when you watch a movie, you know who the director is. I do think what has evolved is the showrunner as auteur or star and that I’m sure is because of the mega deals coming out from Netflix. It’s strangely about how much attention and how much money is being thrown at showrunners.

MICHELLE: But it’s a necessary thing, too.

We were speaking a while back to a network head and he was saying he just needed to know who to get on the phone with when things were going wrong. It’s sort of that simple.

ROBERT: So really what the showrunner title means is, who do we blame when things go wrong!

ROBERT: I think there have been ten times when it started with the actor and [we built a character around them].

One was Cush Jumbo.

MICHELLE: That was a very nice thing. Mark Saks had mentioned her to us because she had a one-woman show, and then Christine came to us independently of that and said, “I just saw the most incredibly talented woman. You must go see her; we should get her on the show.” And it was wonderful to be able to say, You know what, we’re already talking about it.

ROBERT: The other was Alan Alda this year. We knew he became available and wanted to do the show, so we fashioned a character for him.

WS: What can you tell us about season three?

ROBERT: We went into season two thinking we would never mention the word Trump. We wanted an optimistic year because there was so much Trump saturation, but then [it completely took a different turn].

So your battle plan only survives until the first punch is thrown.

What the third season is about is we have a reality-star president, and we’re also turning into a post-factual country, where facts aren’t as important. So we want to look at why that is the case and not just point outwards but also point inwards toward entertainment and how that has created a society that is more interested in storytelling than in facts. For us, it’s about the world of the law, too, and to succeed in court is to tell the better story.

This season we want to look more carefully at how entertainment is part of what is causing people to turn away from facts.

WS: When casting, do you always start with the character or do you sometimes see an actor who is so talented that you want to fit them in?

MICHELLE: Typically it starts with the character on the page. We also have a tremendous casting director, Mark Saks, who goes to the theater five nights a week and is hyper-aware of who is available.

9/18 WORLD SCREEN 47

Co-created by Michelle and Robert King, The Good Fight is set for a third season on CBS All Access.

WS_0918_THORNE_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:15 PM Page 1

FOCUS ON

cultural environment that their [race] would suggest. That became the starting point. We thought, what is the story here and how do we manage to examine this issue? That was the complicated beginning of Kiri.

WS: Did that entail a lot of research?

THORNE: A huge amount of research. [With Kiri and] National Treasure, when you are dealing with issues where people’s scars are still so painful for them and you’re being given the opportunity to write about it on television, you have an enormous responsibility to do your job properly and that means research, research, research.

WS: Does the sense of responsibility block you, or if you’ve done a sufficient amount of research can you follow your storytelling instincts?

THORNE: Yes, [it blocks you] to some degree, but you get used to it. It is blocking the first time you do something like this, and there are projects of mine that I’ve probably screwed up as a result of that. But it’s always a question of lines—what lines are you prepared to wiggle around that aren’t necessarily exactly factually [accurate] in order to tell your story?

WS: Because you’re telling a fictional story, it’s not a biography of someone.

By Anna Carugati

Jack Thorne started his TV career writing on the British series Shameless and Skins but has since branched out into film and theater, with the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the feature film Wonder among his credits. Recent TV projects include The Last Panthers, National Treasure and Kiri, and this prolific writer has more in the works. He is often attracted to topics in the news he feels have been covered too simplistically by the media. He wants to explore complex issues for which he has no easy answers.

WS: Where did the idea for Kiri come from?

THORNE: My mum was a care worker. She worked with adults with learning difficulties at a day center. She called them clients; I knew her clients very well [because] I grew up going to a day center after school.

They were mostly adults with Down syndrome. We would go over there often; they were part of our lives.

That [idea] of people who care professionally and how it works inside their brain has always fascinated me. Toby Bentley, the script editor of National Treasure and producer of Kiri, and I were talking about adoption and the way it works. He said he thought there was something in that and we started investigating it. Then we came across transracial adoption, which is a massively contentious issue worldwide, in terms of how you preserve cultural understanding in kids who are not being brought up in the 48 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

THORNE: Exactly. But then it’s about—without wanting to sound pretentious—the larger Aristotelian truth. What is morally true in this situation? What are the moral lines I can’t cross because if I do cross them, then I will do damage? Working out those lines is tricky, but it’s doable.

WS: Do you write on your own or do you write with someone?

THORNE: I talk to people. Actually, on Kiri, there is one episode that is co-written because I got stuck. I knew another writer who I really admired, Rachel De-Lahay. I asked her to come in and help. She did help enormously and transformed it. And that was because I was talking about Black Lives Matter and I just felt like I wasn’t telling the truth. I felt I was worrying too much about offending people and not being honest as a writer. And Rachel, as a black writer, as a writer who has written about this issue so beautifully in the past, I felt would be able to help me. She was making her TV debut, and I’m very excited that we were her TV debut. She’s a playwright. I think she’s going to go on to make a lot of important stuff.

WS: What sparks your desire to write about topics like sexual abuse and transracial adoption? Is it news-driven or are you just commenting on what you see around you?

WS_0918_THORNE_ALT_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 9/4/18 12:16 PM Page 2

THORNE: It’s news-driven to some degree; issues where I feel the media has taken a very simplistic line. That’s not damning print media; it’s just that because of the nature of tabloid sales, they end up telling a story too simply. The great advantage of drama is that you can go into any issue and you can show the audience people. And if the audience sees people, they start to understand [the issue] in a whole new way. So that was the drive. But each time there had to be a question I didn’t know the answer to so that it never became polemical. I get very bored when I feel a writer knows what he wants the audience to think. It tends to be all men, so that’s why I say “he.” It tends to be male writers who go, I know what I want my audience to think at the end of this—it becomes very proprietary. I don’t know the answer to the central question of National Treasure, and I don’t know the central answer of Kiri. And the central question of National Treasure was, How do you prosecute these [sexual abuse] cases? Do you have to make the perpetrator public in order to protect the victim?

Paul Gambaccini [a radio host falsely accused of sexual abuse] is a very important radio voice in the U.K. His name was made public to see if other people would come up, and he said he was made to feel like human flypaper. It’s horrific that someone had to go through that, but on the other hand, you realize that these are historical sex crimes where people have carried wounds for so long that if you publicize these names and you give the opportunity for justice to occur, that is the only way justice is going to occur. So what do you do? What’s right? The central question of Kiri is what to do when you have a limited number of minority homes that are prepared to take in minority kids and a large number of minority kids who need homes. How do we help these vulnerable kids? Is it right for a white family to take in a black child? And what does race mean in the U.K.?

episodes of Russell T. Davies’ show Banana and then she was ready, and my God was she ready!

WS: Do you feel there is more diversity needed in front of and behind the camera?

THORNE: Absolutely—huge yes! It’s just a reflection of a more conservative time, and I think the commissioners at Channel 4 and the BBC are much more willing to take a shot on new voices [and that] will hopefully [lead] to a more dynamic and interesting TV landscape.

WS: What upcoming projects do you have?

THORNE: His Dark Materials for the BBC, which is an adaptation of Philip Pullman’s books, has been really exciting; and The Eddy for Netflix, which is a drama about an American jazz club in Paris. Damien Chazelle is directing the first two episodes. I’m very excited! He will be brilliant, and I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that.

WS: Has the American model of the writers’ room taken hold in the U.K.?

THORNE: Not for me. I’ve tried it, and I’m not very good at it. But I’m aware that I need to start bringing other voices through. It’s my responsibility as well as the [broadcasters’] responsibility. So on The Eddy, there will be other voices, and they are really exciting, diverse voices. I realize that TV has a problem, and I don’t want to be part of the problem. I don’t want to stop because I love writing for television, but I’ve got to work out a way of not being a greedy white man that is ultimately denying others a voice.

WS: You started writing for the theater. You’ve done movies. Was the transition to television, where you have four or six or more episodes, freeing or scary?

THORNE: I like it. I have since written a play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, that is six hours long! I’m working on His Dark Materials at the moment. I think that film struggles from having to condense so much plot into such a small window. On TV we get the opportunity to truly explore something. I like that exploration, and I like the ability to be really, really slow and then really, really fast. There is so much opportunity within the pacing of television; that isn’t true with other media.

WS: Given the level of success that you have achieved, is it easier for you to pitch and get projects approved by broadcasters, or is the process still difficult?

THORNE: The process is still difficult. We’ve got a problem in the U.K. at the moment. There is a limited amount of people telling stories on British television, and it tends to be the same old faces, of which I’m one. I think that has to do with the fact that the process is so brutal and hard that they’ve got to know that you are going to go with it. Now the commissioners that are currently commissioning are willing to actually look a bit further and are willing to trust new voices. Charlie Covell, who wrote The End of the F***ing World, had done a couple of 9/18 WORLD SCREEN 49

Jack Thorne worked with The Forge on the four-part drama Kiri, sold by all3media international.

WS_0918_WORLD'S END_WSN_1108_WORLD'S END 9/4/18 12:17 PM Page 2

WORLD’S END

IN THE STARS Almost every national constitution forbids the establishment of an official state religion. But this secular bent doesn’t stop people from looking to the heavens for answers to life’s most troublesome questions: Will I succeed? Will I find love? Will Kelsey Grammer get my name tattooed near his groin?

Every day, papers, magazines and websites worldwide print horoscopes— projections for people born in a specific month, based on the positions of the stars and planets. While many people rely on these daily, weekly or

Kelsey Grammer

Alec Baldwin

LANCE BASS

Global distinction: FLOTUS. Sign: Taurus (b. April 26, 1970) Significant date: August 20, 2018 Noteworthy activity: The U.S. First Lady delivers a

Global distinction: *NSYNC alum.

Sign: Taurus (b. May 4, 1979) Significant date: August 5, 2018 Noteworthy activity: The former boy-band member gets

speech at a cyberbullying summit in which she warns of the “destructive and harmful” power of social media.

“Let’s face it, most children are more aware of the benefits and pitfalls of social media than some adults,” she says. The same morning, her husband, President Donald Trump, unleashes a series of angry tweets aimed at, among others, former CIA director John Brennan (“the worst CIA Director in our country’s history”) and special counsel Robert Mueller (“disgraced and discredited”).

Horoscope: “If you focus on doing what seems right and good to you, then others may learn from your example.” (consciouslifenews.com)

into a bidding war for the California home featured in the sitcom The Brady Bunch, which is ultimately sold to HGTV. Bass posts on social media that he is “heartbroken” about losing out. “How can I compete with a billiondollar corporate entity?” he writes. “I truly believe I was used to drive up the price of the home knowing very well that this corporation intended on making their offer and it’s not a good feeling.”

Horoscope: “Don’t be a sore loser; instead speak loudly, even if it’s only to yourself.” (thebocasbreeze.com)

KELSEY GRAMMER

ance in their lives, some read-

Global distinction: “Dr. Frasier Crane.”

Sign: Pisces (b. February 21, 1955) Significant date: August 4, 2018 Noteworthy activity: While appearing as a guest on

The editors of WS recognize that these little pearls of random foresight occasionally prove pro phetic.

But rather than poring over charts of the zodiac to pre-

Conan, the 63-year-old actor reveals that he got his wife’s name tattooed above his groin area. The Frasier alum, who’s on his fourth marriage and met his current wife while still married to his ex, explains that it was her idea, to deter him from cheating. “It was more of sort of an ownership thing,” he tells the show’s host.

Horoscope: “Trust is an important issue in this relationship and you would be well-advised to keep an eye on this matter.” (cafeastrology.com)

dict world events, our staff prefers to use past horoscopes in an attempt to legitimize the science.

As you can see here, had some of these media figures remembered to consult their horoscopes on significant dates, they could have avoided a few surprises.

Prince Harry

MELANIA TRUMP

monthly messages for guiders skip over them entirely.

Lance Bass

ALEC BALDWIN Global distinction: American funnyman.

Sign: Aries (b. April 3, 1958) Significant date: August 18, 2018 Noteworthy activity: While perusing his 22-year-old daughter Ireland’s Instagram posts, the Emmy-winning comedian stumbles across a pic of his “little girl” straddling a motorcycle, with a large portion of her derrière on display for her nearly half a million followers. His disapproving response to the racy image is: “No. Just…no.”

Horoscope: “It’s quite tempting to avert your eyes away from the largest issues that seem to be beyond your control. Nevertheless, it’s prudent to be rational and maintain a solid handle on reality today.” (dailyhoroscope.com) 50 WORLD SCREEN 9/18

KIM KARDASHIAN WEST Global distinction: Buxom reality star.

Sign: Libra (b. October 21, 1980) Significant date: August 9, 2018 Noteworthy activity: Kardashian West’s daughter, North, asks her an awkward question: Why are you famous? The Keeping Up with the Kardashians star—who rose to fame after a leaked sex tape and is known to regularly post halfnaked selfies—tells the 5-year-old that she is a celebrity because of her family’s television show.

Horoscope: “It’s important that you have a solid plan....

Be prepared for questions and confusion and make the choice that will be right for you in the long run.” (thedolphinlmc.com)

PRINCE HARRY Global distinction: Duke of Sussex.

Sign: Virgo (b. September 15, 1984) Significant date: August 4, 2018 Noteworthy activity: Paparazzi snap a photo of Prince Harry attending a friend’s wedding with new wife Meghan, showing him looking quite dapper— with the exception of a hole in the bottom of his shoe. Apparently, the royal figure has been caught wearing wornout footwear before, including at a memorial service earlier this year.

Horoscope: “This is a great time to focus on your appearance, self-confidence and any way you want to ‘reinvent’ yourself during the coming year. Be patient, as Mercury Retrograde can delay immediate progress.” (cardinalfireastrology.com)

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/30/18 10:57 AM Page 1

WS_0918__Layout 1 8/30/18 11:02 AM Page 1