US producers eye ‘nimble’ approach amid ‘extreme market contraction’

The Gentlemen

Nimbleness will be the key “weapon” for production firms as they look to survive the next six to 12 months amid an “extreme contraction” in the market, US-based execs have said.

The squeeze in spending from streamers, coupled with an advertising downturn affecting commercial broadcaster commissions and rising costs due to inflation, has created a perfect storm for producers, with discussions over market conditions becoming a regular theme across the first three days here at MIA in Rome.

“I didn’t realise I would be sailing a catamaran into a typhoon when I took the job but it is really interesting to watch waht is happening, to work out what it means to distribute and produce now,” said David Levine, the former HBO exec who became chief creative officer at Anonymous Content at the end of 2020.

“It is definitely a time of contraction,” added Marc Helwig, head of worldwide TV at Miramax, who added that his company has been trimming costs with fewer producer deals as it shifts its business.

Marc Helwig

“We had a number of overall and first look deals and we started looking at them as the landscape was shifting,” he told MIA delegates. “They are a significant investment, but what we are looking at now is how do we support ourselves as a studio and be a guide for creative partnerships – that can take all different of forms.”

Helwig said Miramax, which is on the look-out for a CEO following the exit of Bill Block last week, was looking at doing more coproductions and moving away from leaning on a small number of creatives via first-look pacts for growth.

“We’re doing less of the taking a chunk of money and putting it on three people to be the drivers for the company. There are instances where that can be workable if those relationships have previously born fruit, but for us it is about placing our bets in different way now.”

Nimble & nuanced

Helwig, whose company is behind a TV spin-off from Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, added that the market correction is necessary and offers potential to companies outside the US, with domestic budgets decreasing rapidly.

“[The level of spending] was not really sustainable, it was part of a larger arms race in streaming and while this period of extreme contraction we’re going into is a little scary it is also very necssary because we have to direct our focus elsewhere. For us, these international partnerships are really important.”

Levine said his Anonymous was looking to build on its “nimbleness, which always been a company hallmark” but said its output is also shifting as a resul of the US writers strike with a more international slate.

“We learn to evolve and we need to be able to approach the market with a different posture and look. The biggest thing in this contraction is the opportunity to provide and give to people, and hopefully we are fairly providing and giving – from our documentaries to our distribution.

“I hope we are providing resources that are disappearing elsewhere.”

Nicky Weinstock, president at Invention Studios, added that a nimble approach was the “key weapon in the industry now.”

He added: “Hollywood is not famed for that, it needs some practice.”