NBC has generated a lot of headlines in the last few weeks for culling so many of its “freshman” shows – those that have only aired for one season. But one NBC show that has built up decent momentum is Grimm, a police procedural fantasy hybrid now in its fourth season. With ratings currently on a high, it was an easy decision for NBC to greenlight a fifth series in February this year.
Grimm’s success is not really surprising when you realise that one of the show’s co-creators, David Greenwalt, has a credit list that includes iconic series such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel. Working with Buffy creator Joss Whedon, Greenwalt wrote, directed and produced large chunks of the first three seasons of Buffy before working with Whedon on Angel. At this point, he brought in Jim Kouf, an old screenwriting buddy whose credits up until that point included the movie Stakeout.
Angel ran for five seasons (110 episodes) on WB Network before being killed off in 2004, much to the shock of its adoring fans. Whedon himself was mortified, comparing the cancellation of the show to a “healthy guy falling dead from a heart attack.”
Roll forward a few years and the idea of a Brothers Grimm-based contemporary drama was first mooted by Todd Milliner (co-founder of production company Hazy Mills). Milliner met with Greenwalt to discuss the idea and Greenwalt immediately called up Kouf. Along with Stephen Carpenter, they devised what would become Grimm. Carpenter was credited on the first episode of season one, but since then Grimm has very much been a Greenwalt/Kouf enterprise. Although other writers have penned episodes, Greenwalt and Kouf tend to write the early and late episodes of each season and also an episode somewhere in the middle.
Grimm isn’t Mad Men or Breaking Bad, but it does a stalwart job for NBC on Friday evenings while also getting positive reviews from critics. During season three, The New York Times said: “Grimm is not a profound show, but few are more purely entertaining, engaging, clever, tense, funny and well-paced…”
Not to be overlooked is the fact it also does well in markets like Germany, France and Australia. The earlier series have also just been picked by Amazon for use in markets like the US and UK.
So what morals can we draw from Grimm? Well, there’s clearly a message here about the power of screenwriting partnerships, and also about the enduring nature of certain story archetypes (Grimm is, in some ways, an upgrade on Angel). And it’s interesting that Greenwalt and Kouf are 65 and 63 respectively – age clearly hasn’t prevented them from writing a show that is proving a regular ratings success among 18- to 49-year-olds.
Last week, we looked at British screenwriter Sally Wainwright and the way her mature works have focused on her home county of Yorkshire. Until now, Wainwright has focused on contemporary drama. So this week it’s worth noting that she is to write a two-hour special about 19th century novelists the Bronte Sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne) and their troubled brother Branwell.
Operating under the slightly unwieldy title To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters, the production will be filmed in and around Yorkshire, where the sisters lived their brief lives (Anne and Emily were dead by 30 – and there were actually two more sisters who died as children). Commenting, Wainwright said: “I am thrilled beyond measure that I’ve been asked by the BBC to bring to life these three fascinating, talented, ingenious Yorkshire women.”
The project was commissioned by BBC1 controller Charlotte Moore, who added: “The Bronte sisters have always been enigmatic but Sally Wainwright’s brilliantly authentic new BBC1 drama brings the women behind some of our greatest literary masterpieces to life. It’s an extraordinary tale of family tragedy and their passion and determination, against the odds, to have their genius recognised in a male 19th century world.”
The BBC’s broadcasting rival ITV has also decided to delve into the 19th century, commissioning an eight-part series on the life of Queen Victoria from Mammoth Screen. Based on Victoria’s diaries, the series will focus on her early life as she ascends the throne at age 18. Given that Victoria lived until the age of 82 and her diaries run to a total of 62 million words, there’s plenty of potential for this project to run and run if it appeals to audiences.
The writing task has been handed to Daisy Goodwin, best known within the TV business as a producer, having run indie company Silver River until last year. The Victoria project is Goodwin’s screenwriting debut – though she has carved out a successful career as a novelist in recent years.
Explaining the appeal, she says: “I’ve been fascinated by Victoria since I started reading her diaries at university. She’s a woman whose personality leaps off the page – a tiny 4’11” teenager who overnight became the most powerful woman in the world, and her candour and spirit makes for an irresistible heroine.
“Victoria was the first woman to have it all; she had a passionate marriage, nine children and was grandmother to most of Europe’s royalty. But she also had a job, being Queen of the most important nation in the world. It wasn’t easy; her reign was beset by scandal and sleaze, and it was only by sheer force of personality that she prevailed. Her diaries give an astonishingly vivid picture of her transformation from rebellious teenager into, to my mind, our greatest queen.”
Another standout project revealed this week is The Young Pope, an HBO/Sky/Canal+ coproduction about a fictional Pope starring Jude Law. Production on The Young Pope will begin this summer and continue into 2016, with filming predominantly in Italy. The eight-part series will be directed by Italian Paulo Sorrentino, who will also write in collaboration with Tony Grisoni, Umberto Contarello and Stefano Rulli.
Sorrentino is quite a catch. His career to date has primarily been focused on feature films. His film The Consequences Of Love was nominated for the Palme d’Or in 2004 and he went on to win the 2008 Prix du Jury with Il Divo. More success followed when his film The Great Beauty won the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film in 2014. Sorrentino has recently started to work in English. His film Youth, starring Michael Caine, is currently competing for the Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival (winner to be announced on Sunday May 24).
tagged in: BBC1, Canal+, Daisy Goodwin, David Greenwalt, Grimm, HBO, ITV, Jim Kouf, NBC, Paulo Sorrentino, Sally Wainwright, Sky, The Young Pope, To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters