The Hollywood Reporter - 30.10.2019

Deal

of the

Week

Big

Deal

7 Days of DEALS

Who’s inking on the dotted line this week

The Report

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 24 OCTOBER 30, 2019

SURVIOR

: ROBERT VOETS/CBS.

BROTHER

: MONTY BRINTON/CBS. WADE: JON KOPALOFF/GETTY IMAGES. REGUERA: GREGG DEGUIRE/FILMMAGIC. PALTROW: MANNY CARABEL/WIREIMAGE. BASSE

TTI: ELISABETTA VILLA/GETTY IMAGES. TRAN:

JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES. HOUSE: JIM STEINFELDT/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES. WEISZ: JEFF SPICER/GETTY IMAG

ES.

THUMBS

: COURTESY OF IMAGE COMICS. HOECHLIN: KATIE YU/THE CW.

Thumbs (IMAGE COMICS, FEB. 4, 2020)

BY Sean Lewis AGENCY WME

A heightened version of the battle being waged in D.C., Thumbs is

a genre take on Big Tech vs. Big Government. It centers on a teen

in an army led by a rock-star digital CEO who recruits users who

have honed their warfare skills with his video games.

Tiny Imperfections (G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS, MAY 2020)

BY Alli Frank and Asha Youmans AGENCY ICM

As a ’90s “It” girl turned director of admissions, Josie is too busy

managing her teen daughter’s future for a relationship. The story

lampoons the current ultracompetitive educational landscape

while providing a romance plot fit for the rom-com resurgence.

Rights Available! Hot new books with Hollywood appeal BY MIA GALUPPO

FILM

Rachel Weisz (WME,

the U.K.’s Independent,

Brillstein, Hirsch

Wallerstein) will play

Elizabeth Taylor in biopic

A Special Relationship.

Bill Condon (WME,

Anonymous) will direct

Marley, a musical reimagin-

ing of A Christmas Carol,

for Disney.

Chernobyl creator Craig

Mazin (Stone Genow) is

teaming with Pirates of the

Caribbean writer Ted Elliott

to develop a Pirates reboot

for Disney.

Shia LaBeouf (CAA, John

Crosby, Matthew Saver)

has joined Vanessa Kirby in

drama Pieces of a Woman.

Kelly Marie Tran (CAA,

Stone Genow) has

joined the voice cast of

DreamWorks’ The Croods 2.

Networks are finding new
life in established series
that are winding down.
A new crop of offshoots
of long-running hits is
coming together for the 2020-21 broadcast
season. In the past month, The CW —
which currently has six shows in its DC
Comics-inspired franchise — announced
plans for two more: Superman & Lois and
a female-driven take on Arrow, which is
ending this season. Both new dramas, from
exec producer Greg Berlanti, star actors
(Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch
for the former, Katherine McNamara,
Katie Cassidy and Juliana Harkavay in

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s ... a Lot More Spinoffs!

the latter) who already have established

their characters throughout the franchise.

Meanwhile, the Mark Pedowitz-led CW

also plans to keep The 100 around with a

prequel from creator Jason Rothenberg

after it, too, wraps its run this season.

The CW isn’t alone in keeping famil-

iarity on its schedule. ABC — home to

spinoffs of family comedies The Goldbergs

(Schooled), Black-ish (Mixed-ish) and

Roseanne (The Conners) — is looking to

an Indian-American family to keep peren-

nial bubble show Fresh Off the Boat on its

schedule into a new decade.

“It’s never been harder for new shows

to break out, so a reboot or spinoff can be

a tremendous leg up,” ABC Entertainment

president Karey Burke tells THR.

“Ultimately, though, the show has to

have its own unique reason for being. It

has to answer the question, ‘Why now?’ ”

— LESLEY GOLDBERG

HOW ENDEMOL TURNS BANIJAY INTO

A TRULY GLOBAL TV POWERHOUSE

Amid the ongoing consolidation of entertainment

and pay TV giants, Banijay Group is shaping up as a

true global Goliath.

The French TV production firm already was call-

ing itself “the world’s largest independent content

creation group for TV and multimedia platforms,”

making various acquisitions over the years. But on

Oct. 26, it unveiled its highest-profile deal yet, buy-

ing Endemol Shine from Disney and Apollo Global

Management for around $2.2 billion, boosting its

scripted credentials and making the Vivendi-backed

company the largest TV producer outside the U.S.

The global powerhouse will have nearly 200 produc-

tion banners in 23 territories across Europe, the

U.S., Asia and now — thanks to Endemol — Latin

America, and it says that its combined 2019 revenue

will reach about $3.3 billion.

The merger will unite such popular Banijay

franchises as Keeping Up With the Kardashians with

Endemol’s unscripted (MasterChef) and scripted

(Black Mirror, Peaky Blinders) hits. “Combining the

resources of these two companies will instantly

strengthen our position in the global market, and

our capabilities across genres will further define

us as a go-to provider of first-class IP worldwide,”

Banijay CEO Marco Bassetti said in a statement.

Analysts see room for cost cuts and layoffs but

also an indie producer’s advantage in feeding the

insatiable appetite for content. “They can be a

‘substitute arms merchant’ to streaming compa-

nies as, say, Disney no longer licenses to Netflix,”

Vogel Capital Management CEO and former analyst

Hal Vogel tells THR. Adds GroupM Global president

Brian Wieser: “With the Warner TV studio now a

more integrated part of a larger entity, there are

more opportunities for independent entities to

become networks’ second studio of choice after

their own in-house studio.”

However, Wieser suggests keeping an eye on

how the strategy pays off across genres. “It will be

important to monitor whether [the growth rate of]

premium prestige content [will be similar to that

of] reality or other formats.” — GEORG SZALAI

Bassetti

Rachel

Weisz

Superman and Lois are getting their own show.

Banijay’s Survivor and Endemol’s Big Brother are among the

combined catalog of nearly 100,000 hours of content.