Classics Pounce Back

June 6, 2011 World Screen

 

There’s no doubt that classic characters are in vogue. Developing shows that are based on known books or characters can be a more cost effective and more dependable route to success when compared to the expense and risk of launching a new kids’ TV property.
 
That’s the view of many players on the global kids’ entertainment scene, including Patrick Elmendorff, the managing director of Studio100 Media. “It usually takes enormous efforts to create new properties,” he confirms, “but with classic properties this effort can be significantly reduced. If you have a brand that is well known and has a popularity that spans generations, the characters are already established without having to embark on advertising and promotional campaigns.”
 
The key to successful launches is developing brand recognition and awareness in the marketplace. Which is why many producers and rights owners quickly opt for classic properties. The help cut through the clutter, they have built-in recognition and instantly gain mom-approval, and in many cases, because mom and dad once loved these characters, classic comebacks give channels a chance to enlarge their audience as they attract a lot of co-viewing.
 
PGS Entertainment has been distributing a number of shows based on iconic characters, including animated versions of Marsupilami, Iron Man and Charlie Chaplin. A major production has been the CGI version of the classic book The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The series Le Petit Prince: A New Journey Begins is attracting both children and their parents.
 
“It brings a lot of co-viewing potential, which is a trend that is starting to pick up as the audience is fragmenting because of so many channels and platforms,” explains Philippe Soutter, the CEO of PGS Entertainment. “A show that offers a co-viewing opportunity and a well-known brand has very strong appeal for a channel. So broadcasters have responded very positively to Le Petit Prince.” 
 
In fact, PGS secured pre-sales with a wide range of broadcast partners, including France 3, WDR/ARD of Germany, RAI in Italy, TV2 in Denmark, TV2 in Norway, MTV3 in Finland, ABC in Australia and more.
 
Co-viewing is a very strong draw for The Hub, the joint-venture channel between Hasbro and Discovery Communications. One of the pillars of The Hub’s programming strategy is marquee-value properties, such as Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony. “With a start-up company, it’s imperative that we get properties that kids know about because they help steer kids to us,” explains Margaret Loesch, The Hub’s CEO.
 
The added benefit of these marquee-value brands is that they attract children and families. “Percentagewise, of all the four key networks, Nickelodeon, Cartoon, Disney Channel and ourselves, The Hub has the highest percentage of co-viewing,” adds Loesch.
 
GOOD TRACK RECORDS
Although classics have always been in demand, the current economic recession has reinforced the vogue for nostalgia, argues Classic Media’s executive VP of international, Chloe van den Berg.
 
“We have been through a bumpy couple of years economically in media and retail, which has resulted in much more enthusiasm for backing nostalgia titles, because they are seen as less risky. People are quite risk-averse right now, which is why classics are in.”
 
“In a time of crisis and uncertainty, it’s reassuring to work on an existing brand,” adds PGS’s Soutter. “There is always a fan base and when the show is well done, the risk is a little bit smaller than when building something new.”
 
The market is responding well to PGS’s CGI animated series Charlie Chaplin, because he is extremely popular, and as Soutter explains, “that is good because it draws an audience. Charlie Chaplin is something that will reunite the whole family around the TV because parents know him; he was the first clown on TV and he made millions laugh. It is always complicated to build a new show but an icon is something that works well.”
 
Michael Dee, Coolabi’s director of content, agrees that one advantage of classic properties is that they can help mitigate risk and attract investment because they often come with a quantifiable track record. 
 
“Any kind of evidence of sales or of a property’s inherent appeal gives you a leg up in terms of attracting investment,” explains Dee. For example, Coolabi’s Worst Witch franchise is based on the successful multimillion-selling books by Jill Murphy, which sold 250,000 copies in the U.K. alone in 2009. The company is also currently in production on a new animated TV series based on the classic children’s books Poppy Cat—which have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide—for Nickelodeon in the U.K. (with CAKE handling worldwide distribution.)
 
An impressive publishing sales story is a good starting point to talk to partners about finance, insists Dee. Evidence that a classic has the ability to sell in multiple territories, especially key territories such as the U.S. and U.K., is also important evidence of a property’s potential.
 
“You don’t expect every territory to know [a given renowned brand] intimately, but it needs an anchor in one or two key territories,” Dee say. “We try to answer a series of key questions when deciding whether or not to develop a classic property: Will it resonate with kids today? Will it work in more than one territory? Is it merchandisable? Is it already successful?”
 
THE CREATIVE TOUCH
Of course, assessing the commercial potential of a classic property is only the preamble to the most important part—the creative treatment.
 
The secret to reinventing classics is staying close to the original, stresses Classic Media’s van den Berg. “Classic nostalgic titles present producers with an interesting double-edged sword. They come with a ready-made fan base that has a great affection for the property, which is fantastic, but it does present potential complications. The public loves the way it is and as a result you have to stay very close to its core values.”
 
“In terms of established brands, parents and children have expectations of the property and don’t want to be disappointed,” warns Studio100’s Elmendorff. “If a character loses his specific skill or characteristic or turns from a good character to a bad one, the new re-branded show or series will be rejected, no matter how popular the original has been.”
 
The trick, of course, is refreshing the concept and attracting a new generation of viewers without alienating that part of the audience that already has a relationship with the property.
 
But there’s no point in creating a new version of a classic property if the producers and rights holders are not going to bring something new to the party, stresses Elmendorff. “Reinventing a classic property should not just be a simple remake of the series or show—you should keep the overall feel and look and the characters should be as true to the original as possible but ‘freshened up’ to fit in with current trends.”
 
Successful reinterpretations tend to involve close relations with the original creators.
 
“We have gone back to the originals and looked at them carefully, studied them, analyzed them,” says Elie Dekel, the president of Saban Brands, which is producing a new season of the Power Rangers. “We brought back our producer, John Tzachor, who helped us make those original shows, and we produced a new series called Power Rangers: Samurai that brings that essence, that DNA, into the new program.”
 
In practical terms, successful reinterpretations of classics usually involve refreshing the design and introducing new story lines, characters and a pacing suitable for a contemporary audience while retaining the original feel and dynamics which originally made it popular.
 
In creating the new version of Power Rangers, Saban Brands studied the original shows and, as Dekel explains, “We’ve really identified some core essential elements: teamwork is one, being good role models for kids is another, and bringing humor back into the show is essential. The show used to be so much fun and that is what kids really responded to. We also have transformation and action adventure and big giant robot battles in every 30-minute episode. There are plenty of ingredients in the show that have helped sustain it year after year, and now with more than 700 episodes from past series, and 43 new ones coming, we know that formula works very well.”
 
The zany antics of Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat have thrilled several generations of children. Portfolio Entertainment has brought the feisty feline back in The Cat In The Hat Knows A Lot About That! Produced by Portfolio and Collingwood O’Hare Productions, in association with Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Random House Children’s Entertainment, the Canadian channel Treehouse and PBS Kids in the U.S., the series has been very well received.
 
The new twist on this classic is that the TV series sets out to appeal to preschoolers’ curiosity and engage them in scientific discoveries. Through silliness and fun adventures, The Cat in the Hat guides Sally and Nick on magical journeys—with a little help from the Fish, Thing 1 and Thing 2—that explore a range of questions from how bees make honey to why owls sleep during the day.
 
The series launched last summer on Treehouse and PBS Kids and has been sold to Disney Channels in more than 40 territories, as well as to broadcasters in several other markets across the globe.
 
“The success of The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! speaks to the value of well-established brands, strong partnerships and a talented production team in the creation of quality programming that resonates with audiences around the world,” says Louis Fournier, Portfolio’s VP of sales and acquisitions.
 
ENDURING VALUE
Other established brands that are finding new life include the reinvention of Classic Media’s 30-year-old kids’ property, Postman Pat,as Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service. “We injected a lot more pace into it compared to the original,” explains van den Berg. “The series became much more mission-orientated, with more in-depth, multilayered stories. We expanded Pat’s world into the new town of Pencaster, plus we gave him new technology from a mobile phone to a new helicopter.”
 
Another Classic Media property, Voltron, a robot animation series from World Event Productions that was a big hit in the 1980s, is currently being reinvented for Nicktoons in the U.S. and will be presented at MIPTV.
 
Postman Pat’s helicopters and Voltron’s robots have clear merchandising potential, but while van den Berg admits that working closely with consumer products on merchandising is critical to the success of reinvented classic, it’s important to make sure the tail isn’t wagging the dog. “Properties do have to work off air in terms of gaming and toys, but it’s paramount to remember that the characters and storytelling are king.”
 
Reinventions are also notable for what they take out as well as what they add in, as Tapaas Chakravarti, the chairman and CEO of DQ Entertainment (DQE), points out. DQE has recently remade a 3D version of Rudyard Kipling classic The Jungle Book and is currently in the throes of a 3D adaptation of Peter Pan, and has also worked with PGS Entertainment on Le Petit Prince: A New Journey Begins and Charlie Chaplin.
 
“We attempt to update the stories and language surrounding the characters to make them acceptable for today’s audiences,” says Chakravarti. “This means we take out any politically incorrect items or characters to ensure the project is suitable for this day and age.”
 
LOOKING AHEAD
One trend identified by Coolabi’s Dee is that the recent economic climate has made the owners of intellectual property ultra-cautious about what they develop. “People now pour over facts and figures and are being much more careful—they want to take fewer risk, identify fewer properties and make more sure the ones they do develop succeed,” advises Dee.
 
But one of the biggest trends sweeping kids’ entertainment at the moment is 3D, a production technology that looms large in the plans of DQE. Chakravarti anticipates strong market demand for this new viewing experience. “With demand for stereoscopic 3D films clearly growing, we hope to bring the theatrical 3D experience into the homes of TV viewers worldwide,” he declares.
 
“Producing these iconic characters and properties in 3D is challenging since they have to be creatively adapted in design terms to make them suitable for 3D,” he continues. “And the 3D versions have to work across various platforms, thereby ensuring cross-media exploitation in terms of games, webisodes, mobisodes and several other options to drive licensing and merchandising.”
 
Whether in 2D or CGI or 3D, classic properties continue to find strong demand in the market, as broadcasters find them less risky than new ideas, and viewers love the nostalgia and shared experiences they provide.