Some of the television industry’s biggest names reveal their choice of the most influential drama of the past 21 years.
Highlighting shows from The Sopranos to The West Wing, Lost to Friends, Seinfeld, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The Bridge, Mad Men, Dexter and others, leading writers, showrunners, producers and network execs pick over the titles that have been most transformative for the business. But what is their ultimate choice?
This DQTV special features contributions from: actors Michael C Hall and Jimmy Akingbola; Jack Ryan creators Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland; Netflix VP of international originals Erik Barmack; Narcos showrunner Eric Newman; AMC Networks programming chief David Madden; Paramount Network senior VP of scripted development Ted Gold; Scrubs and Spin City creator Bill Lawrence; The Mysteries of Laura creator Jeff Rake; Castle creators Terri Edda Miller and Andrew Marlowe; writer Danny Brocklehurst; Red Production Company founder Nicola Shindler; and many more.
Content chiefs at AMC, Netflix, Showtime, Starz and Bad Robot will speak at C21 Media’s Drama Summit West, which takes place in LA on Friday May 19, bringing together the global scripted business to facilitate new productions and partnerships.
The one-day summit, which occurs between the Upfronts and LA Screenings at The Ebell Theatre in Hollywood, will focus on ‘new drama, new models,’ bringing partners together around a creative conference, festival and networking agenda with a view to helping facilitate next-generation relationships.
AMC and Showtime president of original programming and development Joel Stillerman, Showtime president of programming Gary Levine and Starz president of programming Carmi Zlotnik are among a raft of top-tier US programming execs speaking at the event.
They will discuss the state of the US market and their respective 2017 slates, which include Loaded and The Son (AMC); Twin Peaks, Billions and Homeland (Showtime); and American Gods, The Girlfriend Experience and The Missing (Starz).
Netflix VP of content Elizabeth Bradley and VP of international originals Erik Barmack will host a joint session at the event, outlining their global coproduction and international originals strategies respectively. This in-depth session will provide unique insight into how the international business can work with the platform.
Entertainment One Television CEO John Morayniss joins a panel of industry leaders discussing the big questions ahead in US scripted television and creating premium scripted series, which include the forthcoming Sharp Objects starring Amy Adams for HBO; Ransom, from executive producer Frank Spotnitz for CBS/Corus/TF1/RTL; Foreign Bodies for E4; and Havana, starring Antonio Banderas for Starz, among many others.
Bad Robot head of television Ben Stephenson and HBO Latin America VP of original production Roberto Rios will also join panels at the event.
Marti Noxon, showrunner of Sharp Objects, and execs from from Lionsgate, The Ink Factory, Color Force and TV Globo will also speak at the event.
Noxon, whose other credits include UnREAL, Glee, Mad Men and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, will join a panel of writer-producers discussing the evolving entrepreneurial role of showrunner in the changing TV landscape. Sharp Objects, an adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel of the same name, is being directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club, Big Little Lies) and produced by eOne.
Stephen Cornwell, co-CEO of The Night Manager producer Ink Factory, and Nellie Reed, senior VP of Television at American Crime Story producer Color Force, also join a panel looking at how the industry’s hottest independent studios and seasoned producers are developing, producing and packaging next-generation drama.
Further speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.
This year will see the addition of a Drama Summit West Networking Lounge where delegates can reserve meeting tables to use throughout the day.
The 2016 event sold out, attracting more than 500 top-level executives.
Drama Summit West is the sister event to the International Drama Summit, part of C21’s Content London, which takes place in London in December. Recent speakers and contributors have included actor Tom Hardy, director Ridley Scott and writer Steve Knight (Taboo); showrunners Bryan Fuller (American Gods), Peter Morgan (The Crown), Tony Grisoni (Southcliffe, Red Riding) Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty) and Simon Mirren (Versailles); executives Joel Stillerman (AMC), Channing Dungey (ABC), Eric Schrier (FX), Sharon Tal Yuguado (Fox) and Morgan Wandell (Amazon); and leading global producers Jane Tranter, Jane Featherstone, Liza Marshall, Greg Brenman, Richard Brown, Gub Neal and Andrew Marcus.
Vikram Chandra is adapting his novel Sacred Games for Netflix
Hot on the heels of Amazon’s announcement of its content origination plans in Japan, Netflix has revealed a new scripted project in India.
Sacred Games is based on Vikram Chandra’s acclaimed novel of the same name. The author, who will also write the adaptation, said: “Over the last few years, I’ve watched with great excitement and pleasure as Netflix has transformed narrative television with its ground-breaking, genre-bending shows. I’m confident all the colour, vitality and music of the fictional world I’ve lived with for so long will come fully alive on the large-scale canvas provided by Netflix. I’m thrilled to be working with Netflix and Phantom Films (the show’s production company).”
The show is set in Mumbai against a backdrop of crime, political corruption, and espionage. Seven years in the making, it centres on Inspector Sartaj Singh, one of the few Sikhs on the Mumbai police force. The story pits Singh against Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. Shot on location in India, the series will be a hybrid Hindi-English production. It will be available to Netflix members globally upon completion.
Now 55 years old, Chandra was born in New Delhi and has a number of novels to his name, including the award-winning Red Earth and Pouring Rain, which has been published in territories such as the UK and US.
Commenting on the opportunity to work with Chandra, Madhu Mantena of Phantom Films said: “We are very happy to start this journey with Netflix by producing Vikram’s outstanding story. And we are confident we will create some exciting and groundbreaking television content from here on.”
Erik Barmack, VP of international original series at Netflix, added: “We are delighted to partner with creative powerhouse Phantom Films to bring Vikram Chandra’s epic novel to life with the best Indian and global film talent available today. Sacred Games reinforces our commitment to bring the authenticity of local stories to Netflix members across 190 countries worldwide.”
The late New York Times columnist David Carr, whose memoir is being made into a series by AMC and Sony Pictures Television
Other high-profile stories this week include AMC and Sony Pictures Television’s decision to develop a six-part miniseries based on The Night of the Gun, the memoir by late New York Times columnist David Carr.
Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) will play Carr while Eileen Myers is attached as an executive producer and writer. Myers has several high-profile credits, including Mad Dogs, Masters of Sex, Last Resort, Hung, Big Love and Dark Blue.
For those unfamiliar with Carr’s memoir, it is an acclaimed depiction of his battle with cocaine and alcohol addiction. As an active figure in the US media business, he is credited with having kick-started the career of Lena Dunham, creator of HBO’s Girls.
Elsewhere, CBS has given a straight-to-series order to Ransom, a new hostage negotiator series created by David Vainola and Frank Spotnitz (The Man in the High Castle). The show has been set up as an international coproduction, with France’s TF1 and Canada’s Global also signed up for the 13-parter. Also on board is global content distributor Entertainment One (eOne).
The series will star Luke Roberts as Eric Beaumont, an expert crisis and hostage negotiator who resolves difficult kidnap and ransom cases. The show is inspired by the experiences of crisis negotiator Laurent Combalbert, one of the top negotiators in the world.
Spotnitz said: “The world of crisis negotiation is incredibly compelling, as demonstrated by the fascinating real-life cases Laurent Combalbert has negotiated. Laurent has inspired a brilliant and complex character, and you can’t help but be moved seeing all the lives he’s saved around the world.”
Evelyn Waugh novel Decline and Fall is being adapted by James Wood
Amazon continues to be busy – picking up a number of new scripted pilots. Among them is Carnival Row, a supernatural series from Guillermo Del Toro, Travis Beacham and Rene Echeverria. A coproduction between Amazon Studios and Legendary TV, the show is based on a feature-film script created by Beacham 11 years ago. Since then, he has established himself as a leading action-adventure movie screenwriter with titles like Clash of the Titans and Pacific Rim (on which he worked with Del Toro).
Another Amazon pilot continues the current fascination with Cuba now that the country is opening up to the international market. Called Tropicana, it is set in the world of the Tropicana nightclub against the backdrop of pre-revolutionary Cuba. Written/executive produced by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz and executive produced by Andrea Simon, the series will feature all the usual suspects including the mafia, the CIA, Batista loyalists and Castro revolutionaries. Goldin and Abramowitz previously worked together on Klondike, while Goldin’s solo credits include Darkman.
Interesting projects bubbling up in the UK include a BBC2 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s superb novel Decline and Fall. With comedian Jack Whitehall already installed as the lead of the three-part miniseries, there are reports that Eva Longoria is in negotiations to co-star.
The adaptation is being handled by James Wood, who came to fame with BBC comedy Rev. Set in the 1920s, Decline and Fall follows student Paul Pennyfeather, who is unfairly expelled from Oxford University and ends up teaching at a boys school in Wales.
Still in the UK, FremantleMedia has announced that it is backing a new scripted indie to be headed by feted producer Laurence Bowen. Called Dancing Ledge, the company is setting up new offices in Notting Hill with projects from some of the UK’s most talented writers and a development deal with The Hobbit star Martin Freeman.
Laurence Bowen has set up Dancing Ledge
According to Fremantle, the new Dancing Ledge slate includes a dozen projects for UK and US broadcasters including dramas by Mark Gatiss, Guy Hibbert, Chris Lunt, Dan Sefton, and John Donnelly, as well as a new limited event-series development commission for History written by Simon Block (Home Fires). Bowen is also developing several scripted ideas with Martin Freeman.
Commenting on the new company’s excellent writer relationships, Bowen said: “Dancing Ledge is only ever going to be as good as the writers it works with and we are lucky enough to already be working with some of the very best in the UK.”
Finally, Canadian broadcaster CityTV has greenlit some dramas. Bad Blood: The Vito Rizzuto Story, will debut on City and FX in the US in 2017 and is inspired by the life and death of mobster Rizzuto. New Metric Media, Sphere Media and DHX Media will produce the series, based on the book Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto’s Last War – co-authored by Toronto Star reporter Peter Edwards and Antonio Nicaso.
Another commission is Second Jen, a coming-of-age comedy about two second-generation Chinese and Filipino-Canadian millennials and best friends. Created by and starring Samantha Wan and Amanda Joy, the show will be produced by Don Ferguson Productions and premiere on Citytv.com in the autumn.
On the eve of MipTV 2016, German producer/distributor Beta Film sold a slate of German dramas to leading broadcasters in Scandinavia.
Among the titles picked up by DR Denmark, NRK Norway, SVT Sweden and YLE Finland were the right-wing terror trilogy NSU German History X and Tom Tykwer’s 1920s crime series Babylon Berlin.
The four networks also acquired Oliver Hirschbiegel’s spy drama The Same Sky and 15th century period drama Maximilian.
Historically, drama has travelled in the other direction – from Scandinavia to Germany. But the new deals are further evidence of the way German scripted content has started to appeal to international buyers.
Expressing the German industry’s newfound confidence, Beta Film’s director Jan Mojto – talking about Babylon Berlin – said: “Made in Germany is also a hallmark of quality in television. Due to the subject (of Babylon Berlin), the creative energy invested in the project, the names involved, its high standards and, not least, its budget, international reactions to the project have been very positive. Babylon Berlin doesn’t need to take second stage to any of the major international series.”
That view was endorsed by Stephen Mowbray, head of acquisitions SVT, who said: “German producers are now delivering world-class fiction, and partnering with Beta secures a raft of exciting titles for the Swedish public.”
Also upbeat is Tarmo Kivikallio, head of acquisition at YLE: “New German drama is strong at the moment in Finland. The way it deals with German history is unique and thrilling. I am sure Finnish audiences will enjoy these series and I am very happy about the co-operation with Beta.”
German drama was preivously known for being quite conservative in tone and style, targeted primarily at the mainstream free-to-air domestic market. But a shift in the market came with Generation War, produced by UFA and distributed by Beta Film. A hard-hitting, high-quality exploration of the Second World War from the perspective of five young German friends, it has sold widely around the world.
NSU German History X
The success of this show was then repeated by Deutschland 83, another UFA, which that took a quirky, offbeat look at the end of the Cold War era. The story of a young East German spy who is sent to the West on a mission, it was picked up in English-speaking markets such as the US (by SundanceTV) and the UK (Channel 4) – a significant breakthrough for German drama.
All of which brings us to Cannes’ MipTV market, where Germany will be making a lot of noise as Country of Honour. The event will be hosting numerous networking and screening events throughout the week, as well as a series of conference sessions.
In terms of drama titles, the Beta Film titles mentioned at the outset will all be on show or up for discussion. There will, for example, be a screening of NSU German History X. Produced by Gabriela Sperl (Line of Separation) and Academy Award-winning Wiedemann & Berg (The Lives of Others), this drama explores the true story of a series of murders that, despite serious hints, were only exposed as right-wing terrorism 10 years after the first killing took place.
“In the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain, a clandestine far-right German terrorist group called National Socialist Underground, or NSU, began operating in Germany by killing immigrants in cold blood, termed the Bosporus Serial Murders,” explains Beta Film. “It took the police and intelligence services over 10 years to hunt down the perpetrators. Beate Zschäpe, suspected to be a member of the NSU, is still on trial today.”
The 20th century has proved a strong source of inspiration for German scripted TV producers. Another project coming through from Beta Film, for example, is Hitler – a 10–hour event series based on the biography Hitler’s First War by historian Thomas Weber. The show, which promises to shed an unprecedented light on the most closely examined figure of modern history, has been pre-sold to French broadcaster TF1 and is likely to be the subject of numerous conversations with buyers next week in Cannes.
Ku’damm 56 – Rebel With a Cause
As is evident from the above scripted shows, Beta Film has played a key role in the new wave of German drama exports. But there will also be plenty of activity at MipTV involving the country’s other leading content owners. ZDF Enterprises, for example, has already had success with its crime drama The Team. And at MipTV it will launch Ku’damm 56 – Rebel With a Cause. A three-part drama produced by UFA Fiction for ZDF/ZDF Enterprises and written by Dorothee Schon, it is set in the 1950s and tells the story of young women of the era and their struggle for equality.
Also coming through is Blender, a six-part series that Tele München Gruppe is developing together with Friedrich Ani, Ina Jung and Dominik Graf. Based on a true story, the series centres on the head of a police drug squad accused of being involved in the drug world himself.
Global Screen, meanwhile, will continue selling its acclaimed TV movie Naked Among Wolves. Based on a novel about a three-year-old Jewish boy who is smuggled into the Buchenwald concentration camp in a suitcase, it has already sold to markets including the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, Italy, Spain, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, France, Benelux, Poland and Lithuania.
The company will also present Rivals Forever – The Sneaker Battle, which tells the story of the battling brothers behind Adidas and Puma, set against the backdrop of the rising Nazi regime. The show has already been sold to Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.
Naked Among Wolves
One of the main sponsors of the Germany In Focus event is Red Arrow Entertainment, the content creation and distribution arm of ProSiebenSat.1 Media. For the most part, Red Arrow’s international strategy has been driven by participation in non-German scripted content (Bosch, Cleverman, Peter & Wendy, The 100 Code). But it does have a story to tell in terms of German scripted formats. Classic series The Last Cop has been adapted for France, Japan, Estonia and Russia, while Danni Lowinski was recently reversioned for the Netherlands Market.
In terms of future prospects for German drama, there is another development that points to a bright future – namely the emergence of SVoD platforms as content commissioners. Amazon, for example, has recently greenlit its first German-language series in The Wanted. Starring Matthias Schweighöfer as a Berlin convention centre project manager whose life is turned upside down following a mysterious hacking attack, the series will debut on Amazon Prime in Germany and Austria in 2017.
Netflix, meanwhile, has just unveiled plans for its first German original, a supernatural family saga called Dark. Commenting on that one, Erik Barmack, VP of International Originals at Netflix said: “Dark is an incredible German story that will appeal to a global audience.”
All in all then, it looks like we are only at the start of a boom time for German-language drama exports.
For more about Rivals Forever and an interview with Maximilian writer Martin Ambrosch, be sure to pick up the latest copy of Drama Quarterly in Cannes.
