Gaumont’s Christophe Riandee

Gaumont Vice CEO Christophe Riandee shares with World Screen the strategy in building up the company’s TV business, working within a straight-to-series model and more.

WS: What’s been your strategy in building your TV business?
RIANDEE: As part of Gaumont, the oldest film company in the world, we were producing a few feature films in the U.S. a number of years ago, and the talent we were working with were constantly saying that they were interested in doing TV. This was the start of everything, and we decided to work with a new straight-to-series model in order to bring the independent-movie-financing model to the scripted series business. This is what we offered the market, which was very new at the time. Netflix had just started producing its original series the same year as we started our TV business. There was no Amazon, no Hulu and everyone else was doing pilots. Since we already had a TV business in France, producing for the local market, we decided that our U.S. TV business would be more international in scope. And we were able to grow rapidly due to the large expansion of the market, which has grown from around 250 scripted TV projects a year when we started to around 500 now.

WS: Is the straight-to-series model still your preferred model for TV series?
RIANDEE: Yes, but since the inception of the company, there have been many more scripted TV shows produced in the market—almost double in five years—so there is much more competition.  A lot of financing is coming into the TV model because it is less risky than the theatrical movie model, and television programming, especially with the digital platforms, has a much wider audience than theatrical movies. So the size of the television market is bigger and the composition of the market is much different from what it was five years ago. We still prefer the straight-to-series model because that is the way the platforms are operating now most of the time, but we are exploring other models like pilots when they are required or financed by broadcasters, or backdoor pilots.

WS: How did Gaumont become involved in Narcos and what lessons have been learned from its success?
RIANDEE: We were producing Hemlock Grove for Netflix when Eric Newman [Narcos’s showrunner] came to us with his project. We were already exploring ideas for Netflix, which at the time was looking for a project for the Latin American market. The worldwide success of Narcos was unexpected, but the lesson of this success is that borders are totally disappearing and our world is much more globalized. The entire world has access to global content. Anybody in the U.S. can access an Italian-language show or a German-language show. Anybody in Asia can access a Latin American show, such as Narcos. Yet nobody sees Narcos as a Latin American show. It’s seen as an American show even though most of the time the actors are speaking in Spanish. So it’s true globalization. Not only [are shows traveling] from the U.S. to the world but also from every other country to global audiences. This provides a lot of opportunity for everyone because a niche show can reach a very large worldwide audience. It offers a lot of opportunities to producers like us, to broadcasters and to platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. It’s been said that this is the golden age of television; maybe it’s the platinum age or the diamond age!

WS: Are there European stories you feel haven’t been told yet that you would like to tell?
RIANDEE: Yes, we are investing in European projects. The European market is opening up; for example, Medici: Masters of Florence was commissioned by Rai, which is a more traditional broadcaster, and they commissioned it as an Italian period piece in the English language. It was a huge success for Rai and we expect they will expand this policy. I think it’s a very good sign for all the countries in Europe that local stories can be told to an inter­national audience, and obviously international means [producing in] English. On the other hand, there is the success of Deutschland 83, the German-language show that traveled all around the world. The market is opening up in Europe—broadcasters are ready to invest and there are a lot of stories to be told. There are many period pieces, but we are also discovering a lot of contemporary procedurals and family dramas that could travel outside of Europe.

WS: What is Gaumont Television working on now?
RIANDEE: We have around 40 projects in various stages of development between the U.S. and Europe; 20 of these are projects from the U.S., and we anticipate making some exciting announcements about them in the coming weeks. Also in the U.S., we are currently in production on season three of Narcos and season two of F is for Family. In Europe, we are working on Spy City, which is set in Berlin after World War II with British, American, French and Russian spies. We are also in production on the six-part series The Art of Crime, one of the first procedurals set in the world of art that captures French culture and history in a way we believe is a first. This series will debut this fall on France 2. In animation, we are in development on Do, Re & Mi, with Kristen Bell attached. We are in the process of selling that and we’ll make some announcements in a few weeks of a major broadcaster in the U.S. We have lots more, but we can’t reveal them for the moment.

WS: Tell us about Gaumont’s animation business.
RIANDEE: We hired Nicolas Atlan to run our animation business and moved the management of animation to Los Angeles because we see the same evolution in animation as we’ve seen in live-action programming. The digital platforms and all the newcomers need animation for their kids’ audiences and also sometimes for their adult audiences, like the series we did for Netflix, F is for Family. Our strategy in animation is to continue to do as much European production as we’ve done before but to also produce two to three U.S. series each year and develop a few movies.

WS: When you set up the business in L.A. in 2010, did you imagine Gaumont’s U.S. TV operation would be where it is today?
RIANDEE: Frankly, I don’t remember! We were not expecting such rapid growth because we now have 25 people in L.A. We produced three seasons of Hannibal and three seasons of Hemlock Grove. We are in production on the third season of Narcos, the second season of F is For Family and have 20 projects in development in the U.S. We didn’t expect such a global success for Narcos. We are extremely happy with that, but nobody expected it.

We also didn’t anticipate so much change in the market or the importance of digital platforms. Now, everybody understands that they have changed forever the nature of our market, even for movies. Nobody expected that, either. The market grew very quickly and so did we.

WS: In such a rapidly evolving market, it must be essential to remain open to change.
RIANDEE: We need to remain very open to change, that’s my obsession! We also need to work together. The creative teams in France and in L.A. are working very closely on a week-to-week basis. We are taking advantage of our unique position in the market of having a strong presence in Europe and strong presence in the U.S. F is for Family was created because I asked the animation team in Paris to work with the live-action team in L.A. We also recently hired a film executive because we want to develop movies in the U.S. It’s very interesting; we started as a movie company in France, then we set up a TV business in L.A. With that success we also started to develop TV series in France, and now we are starting to develop movies in L.A. It’s a very small company at the end of the day—we have 250 people who work together collaboratively on each project.