Elizabeth Guider Reports: Disney, Lionsgate Unveil New Slates

PREMIUM: Disney Media Distribution unveiled a slate of new offerings from ABC, among other networks, while Lionsgate touted the returning Nashville as well as several new shows for various outlets.

Picture this: three leading ladies of TV drama—Kerry Washington, Viola Davis and Mireille Enos—flanked by producer Shonda Rhimes on stage, jointly commanding the biggest applause from the audience.

The quartet of star talent appeared at the behest of the Mouse House Sunday as upwards of 700 international program buyers got their first look at the cornucopia of content on global offer from Disney Media Distribution—especially the new fall series for ABC network.

Enos stars in Rhimes' latest drama for the network, The Catch, whose clip got especially warm applause from the assembled.

New ABC Studios series, which were introduced to the crowd by ABC’s executive VP, Patrick Moran, also include The Family, The Muppets, Of Kings and Prophets, Oil, Quantico, The Real O’Neals, Uncle Buck and Wicked City (all for ABC); Code Black and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (both for CBS); and Grandfathered (for FOX).

The near 90-minute presentation featured brief remarks by five top executives as well as copious clips from upcoming movies as well as fall series.

"Nobody can match the breadth and depth of what we offer," said Ben Pyne, the president of global distribution for Disney Media Networks, in setting the tone for the evening's pitch to buyers. "It's not even close," he added, ticking off the various components and franchises that contribute to the conglom's output—Pixar, Marvel, Maker Studios and Lucasfilm, as well as ABC Studios, ABC Family and the Disney brand.

Speaking to the assembled clients on Sound Stage 7, where Marvel’s Agent Carter is shot, Pyne riffed on that theme: "We have a mission at The Walt Disney Company: It’s not to save the world, but it is to create the best stories and most enduring characters and bring them to audiences everywhere."

The so-called Disney International Upfronts has become the de facto kick-off event each year for the Hollywood studios' annual L.A. Screenings sales bazaar.

(The major suppliers, including Disney, began unspooling their new wares in earnest Monday morning, though they conducted smaller private viewing sessions for key overseas buyers during the weekend.)

Adding their voices to showcase the breadth of the company's portfolio were Sean Bailey, president of Disney's motion picture production; Ben Sherwood, co-chairman of Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney/ABC Television Group; and Paul Lee, the president of ABC Entertainment Group.

Bailey extolled the film division's current slate, putting the emphasis on the studio's reimagining of properties like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast as well as the "thrill ride" represented by the soon-to-be-released Tomorrowland.

Sherwood pointed out that ABC Studios was the outfit in town with the most pickups by other networks, including the two dramas for CBS and the John Stamos comedy at FOX.

For their part, Lee and Moran put the accent on "the passion and emotional connection" that they believe their current and upcoming crop of shows will arouse in viewers.

Certainly, the mood among the top brass on the Disney lot Sunday was upbeat, given the box-office bonanza from movies like Cinderella and Avengers: Age of Ultron, the strong ratings performance of the current ABC schedule, and the recent stellar earnings report by the media conglomerate.

ABC is returning most of its established shows to its fall schedule, including eight freshmen series, and greenlighting a relatively small number of newcomers—six dramas and four sitcoms.

Come September, producer Rhimes will oversee a whopping four dramas on the Alphabet—which explains her being front and center during the presentation and at the after-party. Still, the age of her longest-running hit, Grey's Anatomy, has prompted the other nets to stitch up rival medical shows on their schedules.

In addition to the mockumentary take on Kermit and friends with The Muppets, Disney's bag of goodies for international outlets include the Mark Gordon-produced Quantico, about FBI recruits; crime drama The Family, starring Joan Allen; and Oil, a sort of Dallas in North Dakota toplining long-time foreign fave Don Johnson.

Allen, Johnson, Priyanka Chopra from Quantico, Marcia Gay Harden from Code Black as well as Stamos from Grandfathered all introduced their clips and stuck around to glad-hand and pose for pictures with buyers at the after-party.

Diversity is a hallmark now of the ABC schedule, especially on the sitcom side, but this fall that effort will widen to embrace a gay-themed sitcom called The Real O'Neals, and the company's Uncle Buck reboot, which focuses on a black family. (So-called ethnic or urban movies do not generally travel well abroad, but black-themed TV series, going all the way back to The Cosby Show, have fared better overseas.)  

All of Disney's new network hopefuls hail from its in-house production studio, in keeping with a general trend across the industry. Network brass typically claim that keeping things in-house leads to more consistency in scheduling and more patience in nurturing shows; detractors say the risk is settling for mediocrity and sameness.

But such theoretical debates were far from buyers' minds Sunday night. First, these 1,400 execs who made the trek to Los Angeles have to get a handle on all the newcomers to the majors' schedule before they make any decisions.

A sampling of their reactions Sunday night ranged from predictably polite to downright enthused about what was teased in the Disney tent.

Aside from thumbs-up for The Catch, The Muppets and Code Black—"who doesn't want to see Marcia Gay Harden in scrubs?" as one witty buyer put it—several buyers questioned by World Screen Newsflash said even the comedies this time around seemed "reasonably funny."

One European buyer pointed to Grandfathered, toplining Stamos, and The Real O'Neals, which looks to be a zanier Modern Family.

Returning talent Kerry Washington from Scandal, Viola Davis from How to Get Away with Murder, Ming-Na Wen from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hayley Atwell from Marvel’s Agent Carter also attended the after-party.

Meanwhile, earlier Sunday afternoon, Lionsgate put on a country-music shindig at the House of Blues for some 350 buyers featuring stars from its prime-time hit Nashville, which just wrapped its third season on ABC.

(Lionsgate is one of just two "indie" producer-distributors to field an ongoing prime-time fictional show on one of the Big Five networks; the other, Gaumont International Television, boasts Hannibal on NBC. The U.K.’s ITV Studios Global Entertainment becomes the third "outsider" to break the mold with Aquarius, the story of Charles Manson, premiering this month on NBC.)

Charles Esten, who toplines as Deacon Claybourne, and Clare Bowen, who plays his niece Scarlett O'Connor in Nashville, performed several songs from the show’s repertoire. Some 350 buyers dropped in to the festivities.

"This is the best age of television, but it encompasses premium and basic cable and on-demand networks as well as broadcast players," said Peter Iacono, the president of international television and digital distribution at Lionsgate, in welcoming remarks. He pointed to the six out of six returning shows on six different outlets that Lionsgate handles as well as ten newcomers for the fall on as many channels.

These latter include Graves, toplining Nick Nolte for EPIX, a Dirty Dancing mini for ABC, and Jason Reitman's Casual for Hulu.

Check out World Screen's guide to the network fall season here.