Television Development

by Bob Levy

  Another reason a writer might spec a pilot (or be paid to by a studio or production company) is because sellers fear the concept may be met with skepticism unless it’s “proven” in script form. They doubt that even a good pitch can sell a challenging concept, but a strong script can more likely overcome buyer doubts.

  Attaching Talent

  As mentioned above, one of the reasons writers spec pilot scripts is to have something more concrete than a mere pitch to which to attract talent. The talent that’s relevant to TV development, that networks might be interested in, include star actors, pilot directors and showrunners. If a writer doesn’t have showrunning experience or doesn’t have enough TV series staffing experience to credibly claim to be prepared to run his own show, attaching a showrunner to a spec pilot script, or even in some cases to a pitch, can provide an extra degree of assurance that there’s a writer with the skills to follow through and deliver the series as promised.

  Attaching talent to a spec pilot is typically done by the agent who reps the writer or by a producer who has either bought the project or in some way partnered with the writer on the project. The agent or producer reaches out to the agent or manager of the prospective talent (actor, director or showrunner), inquires if the talent is open to considering spec pilot material, floats a logline of the project (and some specifics of the role if it’s for an actor), and, if the rep responds, submits the spec pilot script (by emailing it to the rep). The rep reads it and, if he thinks the material suits the client, forwards it on to the client for consideration. The actor, director or showrunner reads the script and decides if he’s interested. If he responds to the material, the talent meets the writer (and producer) to hear more about the project, to learn where the series goes and to see if everyone gets along personally. The talent then decides whether to attach himself to the project, which typically takes the form of nothing more than a verbal agreement, a “handshake.” The talent and his reps are good for their word. The producer and/or agent can then shop the project to buyers and reference the attachment of the actor, director or showrunner. The newly attached talent may be part of the shopping/pitching process at that point too.

  As mentioned earlier, adding a particular piece of talent to a project is a guessing game. Will prospective buyers like that piece of talent and think he adds value to project? In the case of many A-list actors and directors, the answer’s pretty clear. When Jennifer Aniston attaches herself to a TV series, her first since Friends, it’s a big deal and it’s safe to say that just about every network would want to have a crack at that project. When Steven Soderbergh attaches himself to direct a TV series, most networks want to be made aware of the project and, at the very least, have a chance to consider making an offer. But, short of obvious A-list names, assessing who the right talent is that will make a difference to network buyers is a guessing game. Sellers run the risk of “packaging away” from their prospective buyers.

  Attaching talent is also very hard. Top talent are offered a steady stream of high-level projects, scripts, pitches and go-projects, and therefore have the pick of the litter. Because the TV marketplace is so flush right now and so many projects are being developed and bought, many in-demand actors, directors and showrunners are approached constantly with pilot scripts and pitches to which to consider attaching themselves. Most talent usually say no. It’s easier to say no. Most talent respond first to paying jobs. Because their names may add value in the marketplace, most in-demand talent can afford to be very picky.

  Showrunners in particular are especially reluctant to commit to spec pilot scripts or pitches. The showrunner marketplace is driven, like all marketplaces, by supply and demand. Because there are so many shows right now and every show needs a showrunner, experienced showrunners are in huge demand. Most proven showrunners are busy either running shows or considering paying offers and therefore don’t need to attach themselves to projects that aren’t already “going.” Most agents of showrunner clients are skeptical of any projects approaching their clients that aren’t already set up at networks. Projects set up at networks are further down the line, closer to production (i.e., closer to paying their clients cash money) than projects that aren’t set up at networks. Many agents draw the line at what’s referred to as “network interest.” “Network interest” is when either a network has officially bought a project or has at least told the producers or studio, “We like this project and will buy it if you find a showrunner we approve who commits to it.” Sometimes that’s the piece that networks require to feel enough assurance to move forward to commit to a spec pilot script or a pitch from a less-experienced writer. The producer or studio then shops the network interest to attract a showrunner.

  Short of network interest, it’s very difficult to attach a showrunner these days.

  Shopping Development to Networks versus Studios

  Traditionally, most TV projects at the outset of development were set up at a studio before they were shopped to networks. Studios either had a long-term deal with the writer, or the writer and his reps would bring a new pitch to studios and allow them a chance to pay for the privilege of bringing it into networks.

  In the last few years it has become more common, however, for agents and producers to shop “freeball” projects, projects that don’t already have studio partners. If a network buys a freeball project, it will most likely lay the project off at its in-house or sister studio division. The reason that going into a network “clean” (without a studio) has become more common is because network parent company ownership of shows has become more and more important. As viewership and ratings continue to decline in every corner of TV (in part due to increased competition, in part due to changing habits and preferences of younger viewers) the value of the first window of distribution is getting smaller and smaller, but the value of long-term ownership of successful shows (their value internationally and to secondary streaming outlets) continues to grow. Therefore, studio ownership becomes more important as the fees from network first-window of distribution rights decreases. This translates into networks placing a higher priority on projects its parent company or sister studio divisions can own than ever before. If an agent or a producer thinks a project is ready to shop – if the writer and pitch are strong, or enough creative elements are in place for the project to appeal to buyers – most agents and freeball producers (producers without studio deals) prefer to approach networks without studios and give their prospective network partner the option to own the project.

  Studio and Network Development Deals

  One way that studios (and now some streaming platforms) own content is by “owning” writers’ and producers’ creative output. Artist ownership in TV takes the form of development deals: overall deals, first-look deals, blind script deals and POD deals.

  Television studios make long-term development deals with writers they believe are capable of creating hit shows. The most significant kind of development deals studios make are “overall deals,” where the studio pays the writer to own all TV ideas, pitches, pilots and series the writer creates. A step down in level of commitment is a “first-look deal” in which the studio pays a writer only for a first look at the writer’s ideas, a first right of refusal of any new series ideas the writer comes up with. If the studio passes on a pitch from a writer with a first-look, the writer is free to shop the pitch to other studios or networks. Overall deals are typically “exclusive” deals, meaning the writer can’t develop at any other studio or at any network without her home studio. If a writer in an overall deal comes up with an idea her studio doesn’t like, she can’t do anything with it for the duration of her deal. Overalls and first-look deals can run anywhere from one to six years, though two- and three-year deals are most common.

  In most overall deals and in some first-look deals the writer is not only expected to generate new series development, but is also expected to staff on one of the studio’s current series. In the old days (meaning the 1990s and earlier), successful vete
ran writers with overall deals could be paid millions of dollars to effectively write one or two pilot scripts a year. Around the turn of the millennium studios began looking for ways to mine additional value from their overall development deals and began requiring writers under overalls to staff on one of the studio’s shows (though usually not to run them; that workload would distract them from their primary development responsibilities).

  A lower-level deal a studio might make with a TV writer is a “blind script deal.” This kind of deal is per unit of work (one or two pilot scripts typically) rather than for a period of years. In a blind script deal, a studio guarantees payment to a writer for one or two pilot scripts without hearing pitches for any specific ideas (that’s the “blind” part). If an in-demand writer without a deal pitches an idea to a studio that the studio likes and wants to shop to networks, the studio’s first instinct will usually be to try to craft an if-come deal. The writer’s agent may argue that the writer’s experience merits guaranteed upfront money. A compromise solution might be a blind script deal. The guaranteed script fee will apply to the new pitch if it sells, but, if it doesn’t sell, the writer will develop another pitch and another pitch until she sets up a pilot with the studio and the blind script fee is applied to the pilot script the writer finally sells and writes. Commitments of one or two script fees are typical in blind script deals.

  Agents who used to pass on if-come deal offers and fight for blind script deals look more approvingly at if-come deals these days. Because network ownership is so important now, agents may be wary of tying a writer to a studio with a blind script deal if the project at hand doesn’t sell.

  As mentioned in Chapter 1, studios also make overall and first-look deals with non-writing EPs (and their production companies) known as “POD deals” (producer overhead or overall deal). Producers with POD deals are sometimes referred to as “pods.” “Do you know Glittering Media?” a studio exec might ask. “They’re one of our pods.” Production companies with POD deals can range from one or two producers and one assistant to large companies led by a producer with several development execs, current execs, in-house casting executives and numerous assistants.

  Deals with actors, known as “talent holding deals,” used to be common but have become rare in recent years. Interestingly, while studios traditionally make deals with writers and producers, it was networks that made talent holding deals. In 2014 ABC signed the actress Priyanka Chopra to a talent holding deal, developed pilot scripts for her that didn’t move forward, and cast her in Quantico, a pilot that was developed with no particular actors in mind. More and more experienced and in-demand actors are looking to produce TV series as well as act these days, and many turn to studios for production company development deals rather than talent holding deals. Sometimes the two are combined. The actress Sophia Bush signed a holding deal/POD deal with 20th Television in 2017. The deal allows her to develop shows to render only EP services on but not star in, and also to star in a project developed at the studio, by her company or others.

  Directors are unofficially divided into two categories in the TV industry, episodic directors and pilot directors. Pilot directors by and large tend to be the most successful episodic directors who are chosen by showrunners, networks and studios to direct pilots. Most pilot directors work as episodic directors between pilot gigs. (Many active feature directors also direct pilots these days, but rarely episodes of current series, unless they’re episodes of high-level projects the director helped develop and EPs.) Some of the most in-demand pilot directors command studio deals. Most of these deals require the director to direct only pilots from the studio paying her deal. Other top directors command overall or first-look deals for their production companies. In this scenario, as mentioned earlier, the director is effectively functioning as a non-writing EP (and will usually receive EP credit and fees) and works with partners to develop a pilot that she is then expected to also direct. In some cases a director who developed a pilot may not be available when it comes time to direct the pilot, in which case the director only receives her EP credit and another director is hired to direct the project. If the pilots a director developed with a studio don’t move forward to production, the director is usually expected or, in some cases, contractually required, to direct one or more of the studio’s other pilots.

  The yin and the yang of studio (and now streaming platform) deals tend to involve two factors, money and relationships. If an artist has success with a studio and works there for several years, he may form deep relationships with its executives. Those relationships can run very deep. Trust between people working at very high levels of the industry can be highly valued. Money, however, often trumps relationships. Talent is portable and, for the right number, many artists are willing to move their talents to new companies where they hope new trustful relationships blossom.

  Notes

  1 House of Cards didn’t premiere until 2013, but Netflix bought it in 2011. Technically Lillyhammer was Netflix’s first scripted series in 2012, but Netflix didn’t develop Lillyhammer; it acquired the completed series. Lillyhammer was “original” to Netflix (as the network promoted it) only in the sense that Netflix was the show’s first American distributor.

  2 Many facts of the original House of Cards Netflix deal cited here were documented in a Harvard Business School case study by Anita Elberse, “MRC’s House of Cards,” Harvard Business School Publishing, January 16, 2015.

  3 Rhimes’ Netflix deal is reportedly for four years and Murphy’s for five years.

  11

  Case Study

  The Tortuous Five-Year Development of One Hit Show

  “Development hell” is a phrase usually associated with the feature side of the entertainment business. Movies often undergo long and arduous development as studio management regimes rise and fall, as writers are hired and fired, some doing significant “page one” rewrites, and as genres and subject matter heat up or cool off in the marketplace. Stories of features that spend ten years or more in development are not uncommon. Television development is usually much quicker, sometimes as brief as nine months or a year. Development is hard, though, and, even in TV, success often takes a long time and follows a circuitous path. Pretty Little Liars, which I developed and produced, spent five years from ideation to series premiere, surviving three different networks, three different teams of development execs and three different writers until we got it right. This chapter chronicles the development of Pretty Little Liars as a case study to illustrate the tortuous five-year development of one successful show.

  Pretty Little Liars was conceived in the development department of Alloy Entertainment, the company that produced Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and numerous other shows along with Pretty Little Liars. Alloy Entertainment is a book packaging company that’s effectively an entertainment concept think tank that creates ideas ripe for transmedia exploitation in books, TV and film. It creates smart, commercial concepts – typically aimed at its publishing demographic sweet spot, YA fiction (books for and about teenage girls) – then partners with young novelists who execute Alloy’s ideas as books, in many cases toward the goal of producing the books into TV series and movies.

  Ideation

  Like Gossip Girl and most of Alloy’s other shows and movies, Pretty Little Liars began as a book series. When Alloy created the idea for Gossip Girl in 2000 it planned a series of books, and the success of the books created the opportunity for the TV series (which, like Pretty Little Liars a few years later, also took three different attempts with three different writers at three different companies). By 2005 when Pretty Little Liars was conceived, Alloy had opened an LA office and begun creating ideas for books that were actually designed as TV concepts. Pretty Little Liars (PLL) was sold as a book series first, but it was also created with a TV version in mind.

  The ideation strategy that resulted in the PLL concept involved looking at another successful show and examining how Alloy could mine the hit show’s underlying
conceptual formula for a completely different audience. In 2005 we looked at the newest, hottest hit show on TV, Desperate Housewives, and wondered what a teen version of that show would look like.

  Desperate Housewives was a primetime soap with a fun, fresh tone. The series also began with a strong mystery hook. It premiered in the fall of 2004 and immediately blew up. When Alloy’s development staff sat down in January 2005 to begin looking at new ideas for the upcoming TV development season, Desperate Housewives was the highest rated show on American TV and the hottest thing in American popular culture. Alloy’s TV development unit worked with the company’s book development group to see if we could crack “teen Desperate Housewives.”

  First, we looked closely at what Desperate Housewives was and how it worked. At its core Desperate Housewives was about four married women in their 30s attempting to figure out why their fifth best friend committed suicide. (That “why” constituted the initial series mystery.) Along with that mystery, which revolved around an event in the recent past (the fifth friend commits suicide in a prologue sequence that occurs before the pilot’s main action begins), each of the four lead characters had her own present-day secret, soapy storyline. The four housewives were friends and lived in the idyllic world of Wisteria Lane. Those were the essential conceptual elements we focused on.

  First, it was easy and intuitive to transpose the four 30-something married lead characters into four 16-year-old girls. When we worked on the inciting backstory event – what happened to the fifth best friend, what’s the mystery? – we began thinking too literally, batting around concepts involving a fifth friend who committed suicide. That not only felt too imitative, it felt wrong for the fun, soapy tone we aimed for. After a few months of brainstorming, the idea of a girl who went missing dawned on us, which we quickly realized created even more potential mysteries than our source of inspiration. If our missing teen girl, whom we named Alison, has been gone for some time, it’s natural to begin to wonder if she’s not just missing but, in fact, dead. Once we locked on to the idea of a friend gone missing, the idea emerged of “A,” the anonymous, mysterious character who arrives well after Alison went missing and taunts the four remaining friends with information only Alison could have known. Was “A” Alison? Was Alison actually still alive after all this time missing? If “A” was Alison, where had Alison been and why was she threatening her old friends? If “A” wasn’t Alison, was Alison dead and, if so, who killed her and why? And who was “A,” how did she know things only Alison could have known and why was she terrorizing Alison’s best friends?