Adrian Hodges Keynote Opens NATPE Europe

PRAGUE: Adrian Hodges, whose credits include serving as co-creator and lead writer on Primeval and showrunner on The Musketeers and Survivors, kicked off the opening of NATPE Europe this morning with a breakfast keynote, in which he shared his experience and perspective of the global television landscape.

It is so often the case with big-name keynotes that the promise is much greater than the reality. So often the industry’s big-name successes turn out, understandably, to be reluctant to reveal the real secrets of their success—so often, but not always. The Adrian Hodges keynote was one, happy, exception.

Hodges is a genial, open and direct communicator unafraid of the dreaded ‘H’ word: honesty!

All of which can no doubt be explained by his origins in the business as a trade journalist. Realizing (with, it must be said, no obvious bitterness) that he wasn’t cut out for journalism, he became an acquisitions executive at the now defunct Thorn EMI, where he recalls, “I read thousands of scripts while still writing all the time—I was determined to become a writer.”

In the early ’90s that determination paid off when two of his scripts were commissioned and broadcast, Tell Me That You Love Me for the BBC and The Bridge for Channel 4.

He credits his time at Thorn EMI with giving him “an invaluable insight into the buying, selling and formatting of TV.” An insight that clearly wasn’t “in depth,” as it took him the experience of these two first productions to discover that “even though you know what you wrote, actors and directors can change everything significantly.” It was this epiphany that pushed him toward executive producing/showrunning; and, it would seem, formed much of the philosophy that has permeated his subsequent work.

That philosophy can be summed up in four words: “control, creative, freedom, communication.”

Much of Hodges’ work has been adaptations of previously existing oeuvres, something he explains thus, “they are much easier to sell because everyone knows there is an audience for them, and they are easier to do, compared with original ideas, which are really hard and take a lot longer to develop,” adding, “and it is a big help if the original writer or creator is dead!”

The audience laughed, but apparently not all living authors would share the joke. Referring to his 2012 adaptation of Kate Mosse’s bestseller Labyrinth, Hodges recalled taking the author to lunch, where he began describing his plans for her novel. Her reaction was such that Hodges abandoned this plan before the end of the hors d’oeuvres, telling Mosse, “I will do what I think is best”—although he does claim she liked the end result.

If this sounds egotistical, it isn’t. Describing the gestation of The Musketeers, which departed markedly from the Dumas original, Hodges said that he was happy with the request of BBC Worldwide to make the series episodic, as “everyone knows the story backwards, plus the original story has an end and, this being television, we want the series to run as long as possible.”

The important thing, he concludes, “is to make sure, before you start, that everyone is talking about making the same show!” Simple, really.