Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My guests are Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, head of Amlin Television. Darryl and Justin are rare birds. Indeed, they've been running
Steven Spielberg's TV company for nearly thirty years. They've set the standard for a busy boutique with great shows like The Americans, Under the Dome Bowl, Falling Skies, Rescue Me, and Going All the Way Back to Spin City. Now, the company has moved into documentary and unscripted production in a big way. In October, they sent a nature documentary to the top of the Netflix charts with the launch
of the Life on Our Planet series. Upcoming projects include Big Vape, The Rise and Fall of Jewel, and other documentary features and series that probe very interesting and distinct new worlds. As we will hear in our conversation, Daryl and Justin also lay out exactly why the company moved into premium unscripted, and it's very similar to the changes that affected writers to such a degree that they went
on strike for nearly five months this year. It's all about piecing together a portfolio of shows at a time when the world of twenty two episode seasons are no longer the norm. Darryl and Justin have the confidence to be candid about where they see the business heading, where some of the problem areas are, and hopefully where some of the solutions are.
Coming in twenty twenty four.
That's all coming up after this break, and we're back with an interview with one television heads, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey. Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, thank you so much for joining me today when we were talking about, you know, what's new and interesting at Amblin Partners. Of course, I know the unscripted has been a real priority for you for a while. To break into that in a
big way. You certainly have with Life on Our Planet, which you know, Rock literally rocketed to the top of Netflix in its first week in review, first week in release, which is a pretty impressive thing for a natural history documentary.
But let's step back.
A little bit from the specific titles, and first i'd love to hear from both of you why was it important? What motivated you to get to Amblin to bring Amblin Television into the business of high end, very well produced documentary and unscripted content as a compliment to your very you know, long and robust business that you have on the scripted scripted contents. What what drove you into the what what motivated you to get into the unscripted and documentary arena?
Well, well thanks for having us. First of all, it really was twofold one was we have a real passion for documentaries. Is this is sort of what we both watch on sort of weekends. You know, having been in the scripted world for so long, it's sort of a lot easier to go home and relax watching a doc than it is watching a scripted show when you're looking at every who directed this, who wrote it, who was
the production signer, who was the cinematographer. It's it's easier to sort of tune out a little bit on those. But you know, the you know what a lot of the platforms have done over the last few years in documentary has just been incredible, and so it started with the passion, but it also was a real important business move for us. You know, as episodes episodic orders got shorter.
You know, we justin and I have been around for a long time and been doing this, uh you know, uh since the deficit financing days, and you know, when we would do twenty four episodes of a scripted show for network, and it went from twenty four episodes of a scripted show for network to thirteen episodes for Basic Cable, to ten episodes at streaming, and then nine episodes, and then eight episodes, and now certain people are doing six
episodes and with back ends disappearing completely given that there's no syndication market and the sort of back end buyouts. It really sort of we looked at our business and we said, wow, we're really turning into a business where episodic fees are really driving everything. And when we used to do twenty four episodes and now we're doing eight, we have to do three times as many scripted shows to make the same amount of money. So for us,
it was twofold one creative. We feel like there's you know, it's a great expansion of our business and we love telling these stories. To us, they are just nonscripted dramas. That's how we look at them. We don't really do reality game, but we really do you know, premium documentary narrative stories. But it really sort of came from, you know, both the creative but then also the business aspect of like where do we make up the revenue if we're if we're doing eight episodes on scripted series.
It's a math.
Yeah, just I.
Have one job as moderator when I have two guests, and that's to identify the guests. That who was just speaking was Darryl Frank. Forgive me, I'm going to say this. I'm going to really sound ancient, but Darryl, you look more and more like your dad.
All the time.
Thank you, Rich as one of the very very senior folks in the business when I first started and learned a lot from him. Justin please, I would love your perspective on what Daryl just has.
I'm looking a lot more like my dad.
He's a retired dentists as much chair.
Maybe it's more here than I do.
He has changed lives and teeth.
That's right, that's right, yes, look at it.
It's it was creating a new revenue stream, you know, on a purely financial basis. But the Darryl, you know, nailed it, and that's saying it's a perfect confluence.
Of passion and business.
And you know, we are twenty eight years at this company, the two of us this month, if you can believe that. And as people say, you should stop telling people that because you're basically just saying how old you are. However, I think it's what's it's interesting because in that time, it's as though we've been at five different companies. We've had the ability because of our size, that we've been able to change and be nibole and adjust to the
to the changing marketplace. And and yes, in this last you know year has been a seismic shift.
No question about it.
We were you know, it was interesting because the pandemic really kind of forced us to scale up the nonscriptive business as all the scripted stuff really came to you know, came to an end for some time there, and then we were very well positioned in this last year to just continue further and continue to scale up and hit the ground running when I think a lot of companies were trying to pivot and shift into the nonscripted space who didn't have that experience, so you know, not that
there was a silver lining of the pandemic for anybody. But I think that runway really gave us an opportunity to really focus on it in the last in the.
Last twelve months.
And and also, you know, Strikes Aside twenty three right out of the game was proving to be a huge challenge in terms of the marketplace and selling. You know, a lot of these companies just didn't have the money and they were being incredibly selective and fickle. And that is certainly the case now as we're coming out of this, and we'll continue on into until twenty four and you know,
hopefully we'll get back to a much healthier place. But it feels like, you know, it's going to be a long, a long recovery, and now we have to think forward in terms of finding that balance once again with scripted and nonscripted.
So interesting times.
You guys have very you know, quickly distinguished yourself with some very high end production life on our planet. A project of that scale and caliber that does not come together in six months. There's nothing, you know, there's nothing like low budget about just looking at the scope of what you've got on the screen there. How are you making how are you making how do you make the economics of documentary and unscripted work for you in this environment, in this environment right now?
Well, each each project's different. I mean that Life on Our Planet actually came to us from Netflix, and you know, I think a couple of things that people bring things to us for is one is sort of access and another is expertise. On that one they were looking for, how do you sort of transport people to prehistoric times and then recreate these animals that were extinct. So obviously Silverback is the best in class at sort of natural history.
They do it better than anyone, but they hadn't done visual effects before, and Justin and I have done that for two decades working for Steven and learning how to do that. So they came to us on that and it became just a great sort of collaboration. That's what we've been looking for in sort of all of our shows.
We sort of we.
Used our scripted playbook in the nonscripted landscape in terms of let's partner with the best in each genre, you know, whether it was Alex Gibney does a certain thing, so we do a lot of shows with him.
R J.
Cutler does a certain thing, Frank Marshall imagine, So we tried to sort of find a way to combine forces with the best in the business. And sometimes it's us bringing the idea to somebody and other times it's people bringing the idea to us.
You know.
Good Night API is another example of access. You know, NASA has a lot of people knocking at its door, and to have the Ambulance brand, there's sort of a guarantee that the show is going to be done in a certain way and at a certain level. And so that was one another one where somebody brought us the idea.
So we really sort of do you know what we do inscripted as we source great material and then we partner with the best of the best, and then we try and as Steven says, he calls us his block and tackle is like we try and block and tackle and allow them, you know, the creative people to do you know, their best work, and then bring bring something to it from our end as well, whether that's storytelling, whether that's packaging, whether that's you know, chasing talent, you know,
getting Morgan Freeman to be the narrator in life on our planet, we have Lessie Feldman, who runs casting for us, and we call her our secret weapon, and she was able to get Angela Bassett to do the vo for good Night Appia as well. So we kind of use all of our all of our tools that we use in the scripted world we use in the non scripted world as well.
And Life on Our Planet that was a five year endeavor.
It was a long time from the original development to screen, as by the way, many of our scripted shows have been. And you know, we always joke with folks we're developing with if the time in place is not right today.
You know, we've been at this company, as I said, for twenty eight years.
It will find its time and place, and that's proven to be true, I think, without a question. But to answer your question, yeah, I think there are things like Life and Our Planet that take a lot longer. And then we had two other Netflix documentaries premiere within the last six weeks, Encounters which was four hours.
In Big Vape, which was four hours.
Both premiere to number one, and that's a much shorter production period.
You know.
And as always as a case, let me just ask you, yeah, excuse me, let me just ask you justin so like interesting the Jewel story, which is definitely on my list I want to catch up with because that just story just seems like how that, how that was allowed to happen and like you know, ruin the lungs of a generation of teenagers and twenty some things that you know, we're marketed to aggressively something like that.
That's a little more topical kind of off the news off of litigation that's going on, is that that obviously is going to be a different process than a five year natural history documentary with with animation and special effects and that kind of thing. So I'm guessing it's like you have a portfolio of things. You have your things that you know are going to take a couple of years, things that you can turn around a little quickly, historical documentaries, just looking at your slate.
Yeah, yeah, that's correct, And you don't often control you know, we were fortuitives at the end of this year that we had three you know, very high profile docs between the counters Vent Life on Our Planet premiering, but the timing of that was not something that we necessarily control, and is the case with many things going forward, and we have you know, fifteen other you know docs in the in the pipeline and you try to spread them out.
You can't get guarantee that.
So it's it's just an ongoing conversation with these platforms and when they're you know, when they need something and when they can't anticipate eating something.
So but that is the advantage of you know, one of the big advantages of nonscript is you can get things going much more quickly other than you know, the outliers like Life on Our Planet that took five years and we were on you know, visual effects reviews every Monday for four years. You know, we have we have
stuff like that in the scripted world too. We have you know, Masters of the Air that's coming out and you know at the Top of the Ear for Apple that was literally a ten year journey, or Halo that took us eight years. And so it's similar in that, you know, we have the advantage just night being at the company for so long that we're you know, there's things that we've worked on that we could stick with
and deliver on and not have to worry. Okay, well if we're leaving, you know, they're not going to keep going, right, But that is an advantage in nonscripted is that you can really get things going much more quickly. It's a little easier to sell them in terms of the economics of them, some of them. You know, it's like anything.
It's like the scriptor world too. If you get a bidding war going, you're going to have better economics, and you're going to have a bigger piece of the back end because the back end will be bigger and other ones the margins are smaller, and and you're splitting. You know, a lot of times we're splitting with partners. We don't mind splitting with partners as long as everyone's bringing something
to the party. To us, we'd rather have, you know, fifty percent of something than one hundred percent of nothing.
So we just.
Find the best people and we watch all of the docs and we oh, I would love to work with that person. And we has been great about they represent us in TV. They've been great about, you know, introducing us to people that they're in business with, whether it's at their own company or other people that they don't wrap in just trying to make marriages, you know, because it's such a collaboration mm hmm.
And then and some of these sorry, some of the some of these ideas that we're developing it documentaries warrant you know, a scripted conversation, and they're a handful that we're developing simultaneously.
As scripted and nonscripted.
The upside of the nonscripted and the documentary being able to move on that quicker is that we could use that almost as a platform to help launch the scripted shows. And we have a few things to that end that we're working on. We're working on right now, or as you know, I think Netflix has done successfully, you can have you know, a nonscripted doc that is simultaneously launching when you're scripted show that's maybe in the same area or arena, and connect those dots.
So that's always something interesting look at.
And we also constantly talk with our creative team about finding inspiration in you know, in docks that aren't necessarily that are not our docs. But as you know, as we know that, you know, the truth is stranger in fiction, and you'll often find a backdrop or a world or a character or something that could inspire something on the scripted side as well.
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more from Amblin Television Heads Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, and we're back with more from Amblin Television chiefs Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey. Would you say, I mean, it's it seems evident, but would you say that, like star, the cost of starting up a unscripted if you have a documentary idea, the startup costs are much less.
Than if you say, I have an idea for a sitcom.
Yeah, or of course yeah, because you don't obviously don't have a script, and you you know, it's really a sizzle and a deck. It's sort of what we go out with a sizzle, a deck and a great pitch and then some access. So you can have a lot more of those going for what it would cost you to, you know, do a pilot script if you will, or do a pilot.
My mom, And would you say that?
I've also been hearing from people that the especially in unscripted reality documentary, that some of the even at Netflix, like some of the terms are loosening a little bit. It's not like okay, blanket, we're buying you out for ten years, fifteen years, but that there's a little more wiggle room, especially to get like territories outside the US and Canada. Okay, well maybe we don't need this documentary for eight years in this part of Western Europe.
And you know, after a year you can see. I mean, I've heard.
I just came back from Mipcom and I was hearing from a lot of the European producers especially that there's that suddenly there's a lot more flexibility. I don't know if you guys are feeling that at all in terms of deal deal making, particularly around the unscripted.
Yeah. Again, it's it depends on how many offers you have and you know how frothy you can make the market. But they are open to licenses in certain scenarios and it has to be sort of the right group of
people and you have to have multiple offers. But look, it's something that has to start happening in the scripted business too, I mean, and that's why I love what you know, Peter Chernan's doing and Evans is over there now at North Road and what they've talked about of sort of you know, you can't these buyers, the platforms can't supply everything to themselves. You know, they need independence,
they need other people bringing them things. So it makes it's good business sense to say, okay, well, you know we we don't want to pay that, we won't pay the full amount. Let somebody else take a little bit of risk and then allow, you know, allow there to be some success based results, you know, where where you
could actually make money off something. You know, right now, if you have a if you have Stranger Things on Netflix, or if you have the thing that's you know, number three hundred, as a producer, you get paid the same amount, you know, So we're really looking for, you know, the business to change a little bit where maybe these perpetual license fees go away, Maybe there's non exclusive licenses after a couple of years.
Maybe there's.
Territories that you can carve out as you know, if you put up a little of the money, and I think for the buyers, it's going to make their money go, their budgets go a lot further if they don't have to pay one hundred percent, one hundred and twenty percent,
one hundred and forty percent of every show. They don't need these shows for fifteen years, you know, ninety percent of them, you know know, it's you know, people are going to watch for three or four years they're not going to watch for fifteen years, So how do you how do you change the model so that producers, independent studios could start making money again. And that's just good for the health of the business.
Yeah, And it's as you said, it's mitigating it's mitigating the risk, but also allowing them to focus less on you know, a massive development spend, you know, which is a lot of them have doug a hole to that extent, and you know, and if they can be wise about the way they're spreading the well so to speak, it will go a lot further.
If their goal mostly for these platforms.
It's subscribers, you know, and it's balancing for them short term versus versus long term. Well, most of them are in a position now they need to get healthy quickly and they have to offset that somehow.
So I think it's invariable.
I think you're correct, definitely is trending that way, and that'll be great for everybody.
How about for you all as a business?
How you know, it's a it's a challenge right now to kind of peg a value on anything, right what's the value of a show coming off of NBC coming on that may go on to the you know, might be sold in the kind of streamer syndication market that the valuation of content. How are you guys, how do you guys kind of figure out what's your ROI what are you willing to spend? Do you do you the same kind of financial metrics that you would consider for
a scripted project. Do they apply same? Is the same general principles that that that where you decide what you're going to commit to what's worth investing in in the unscripted documentary.
Yeah, I mean it's it's basically the same thing. I mean right now in scripted and nonscripted, the buyers are paying one.
Hundred percent of the or more of the budget.
So it's really about if if the producers want a bigger piece of the back end, they got to risk something. And I think those are the companies that are going to really change things going forward. Is okay, who's willing to who's willing to put up the deficit? But then what buyers are willing to let you do that? That's the biggest issue is that they don't.
Want to let me put the money out right, and they.
Want to own it. They want to own it all.
They want to be the studio.
They want to buy you out of being the studio. But that's what's broken the business.
But it's also that's where it's our responsibility to know to know the marketplace and anticipate what is going to become a potential bidding war, and how much money are we going to put into our sizzle reel, and and what kind of presentation are we bringing out into the community that.
Could create that you know, that binning war.
That will ultimately hopefully result in in having some you know that our financial position.
Well, my goodness, thank you for talking me through your documentary work and kind of the reasoning and the business strategy behind it. I know you too long enough to know you always have a lot of ores in the water. Are there any things anything coming up in twenty four hoping that obviously business can get back to something like the normal, the normal of Hollywood, which is always unusual, but you know, assuming business can get back to normal.
Are there one or two things, whether scripted or unscripted, anything that you're excited about coming in twenty four, anything we should stay tuned for.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean two things right off the bat Masters the Air, which is our third installment, and Band of Brothers and the Pacific is premier a.
Little matter like that that's going to be you know, incredible, and the timing with anniversaries and World War two coming is going to be really impactful.
Yeah, So that's co production again with our friends at Playtone on Apple at the end of January and B seventeen Bombers based on a Donald Miller book.
It's incredibly.
You know, compelling, kind of a spectacular look at it again grounded, you know, Journey of Two Gentlemen in particular, but that is something we're really excited for people to anticipate. And then Halo season two finally coming back, and that is going to be in February of twenty four and again something we worked on for eight years, developing that thing to get it up and going in.
First in the first season.
So obviously second season, having the ability to look at our first season, which we are really proud of, and we feel like the second season is even even stronger. And then behind that, you know, we're thrilled to finally be talking to writers again and we've got seventeen other things set up and hopefully many of those will see
the light of day. So We're keeping our fingers crossed for a happy the twenty four and really excited that we can kind of get out of the gate with two really really special, unique projects.
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