Demand trends for “mainstream” TV series and Fremantle’s film business, thanks to Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, starring Daniel Craig and Yorgos Lanthimos, and Pablo Larraín’s Maria, starring Angelina Jolie. growth was one of the main themes of discussion among British executives. On Wednesday, the second day of the 4th edition of the Iber Series & Platino Industria, the production giant held in Madrid.
The spotlight panel session included Seb Scholl, CCOO of Global Drama at Fremantle UK, Olivia Slyter, Head of Production, Fremantle Italy Global Drama, and Manuel Marti, Head of Script Development at Fremantle Latin America. has appeared.
“There’s quite a bit of it. I think it’s 17 films now,” Slighter said of Fremantle’s growing film business. “This is a movie made for cinema and a movie made for TV.” Notably, Element Pictures, in which the company holds a majority stake, is working with Yorgos Lanthimos, and “is currently working on his next film.” “I’m filming it,” she said.
Mr. Scholl told the audience: “We’ve always been making films a little bit over the last few years actually, but we really wanted to make it a very important part of our portfolio and a major part of our business. I’m here.”
He also noted current difficulties in this area. “The market has been challenged over and over again, and in almost every region we are experiencing a sort of perfect storm of ever-increasing production costs, and broadcasters are struggling and unable to put in the money they should be investing. “I haven’t,” he explained. “Series financing is becoming increasingly difficult. This is the kind of structural financing challenge we face. At the same time, many purchasers are in the so-called mainstream, Stream, pushing the mainstream and moving away a little bit from some of the prestige genres that streamers in particular have been chasing for the last few years.
However, Marti emphasized that producers and networks can strive for mainstream content without simplifying things overall and instead “adding layers” to their productions.
Mr Scholl also spoke about what it means for Fremantle and other businesses. “Our challenge, and the challenge for all producers, is to sit there and find the right way to respond to the needs of the market, but also navigate difficult financing scenarios to put together a successful show. “Broadcasting stations can also make money.” He concluded as follows: “Broadcasters are all looking to cut their budgets, almost all broadcasters in every region want to reduce their spending. This gives us an opportunity to get back to co-production in a way that hasn’t really existed in the past few years. And I think that’s going to continue to be a big trend.”
Mr Scholl said Martin Freeman’s series The Responder was a “great show that we’re very proud of”, but also an interesting case study. “It worked on the basis of very strong sales performance in the United States.” However, if the show were produced today, things would probably look different. “If we were to build a ‘Responder’ again, we would probably look at a lower cost. Just because the market has become this way, we don’t see the same market internationally. ,” he explained. “We gave it the green light ourselves right away from the BBC and then waited for it to be released in the US. But given the challenges in the market, I don’t think that will happen now.”
The Fremantle team also mentioned the Italian series Costiera, about a half-Italian ex-Marine who returns to his childhood home to solve problems in one of the world’s most luxurious hotels. “This is a show that we created for Amazon in Italy. I think it was the first time that Amazon in Italy produced a co-production model,” Scholl said. “They just occupied Italy, France and Spain. And we retained the rest of the rights,” and that spread all over the world.
But Amazon liked it so much that it ended up taking over even more territory. “This is a very mainstream show,” Scholl said. “It’s selling really well. And interestingly, on this show, we actually sold a lot of territories to Amazon that we didn’t initially give away because Amazon was so excited about this show.”
What are Fremantle executives looking for in the future? “We’re hoping the market will improve in a year or two,” Scholl said.
Slyter then spoke about Fremantle’s response to the rise of artificial intelligence: “When it comes to AI, we’ve created some specific working groups because we don’t want it to suffer. We want to leverage what you can offer,” she explained. “Of course, we always consider what our talent wants. We have to protect them too. But of course, it’s something we seriously consider. We We’re going to do some focus groups and share as much as we can with all the experiments that we’re going to start, and we’re going to share (insights) with all the departments and all the labels.”
After all, “AI is not just for experts,” she concluded. “It’s something we can all use. And it’s something we need to address appropriately.”
