Elizabeth Guider Reports: Disney Presents New Slate

LOS ANGELES: Putting the accent almost equally on its prime-time drama hopefuls like a moody suspenser called Red Widow and a Da Vinci Code-inspired mystery called Zero Hour, its Avengers-energized movie slate, and, for the first time, ABC Family’s slate of teen-targeted cable titles, Ben Pyne, the president of global distribution at Disney Media Networks, kicked into high gear the week-long L.A. Screenings Sunday night at that studio’s Burbank lot.

For the last decade, Disney has essentially inaugurated the marathon of wheeling and dealing for rights to the various Hollywood studios’ output, most importantly, the assortment of upcoming dramas for prime time on the various U.S. broadcast networks.

Disney’s chief competitors—Warner Bros., Fox, CBS, Universal and Sony—also ratchet up Monday morning as swathes of the 1,200 foreign program buyers variously traipse around town to one or two lots per day to check out the pilots being paraded out by each supplier. Odd as it is, it is not a pointless ritual.

Buyers representing free-to-air commercial stations and pubcasters, pay-TV services and newfangled digital platforms abroad plop down in total upwards of $8.5 billion a year on Hollywood fare from the six majors, mostly via ongoing volume deals that the key international clients have with these Tinseltown suppliers. In short, many execs come to town to see what they’re in any case allotted through their ongoing agreements—or that their rivals from back home will be loaded up with.

In only a couple of crucial markets, Canada and Britain, do programmers have the luxury of acquiring series on the open market. The Canucks bulk up on the spot as the two main players, CTV and Global, have to announce their own fall schedules back home in a couple of weeks; barring a bidding war for something really hot, the Brits take their sweet time, often not settling on anything they’re interested in until the late summer or the fall.

All buyers, however, are increasingly wary of what one called "the sizzle-fizzle factor," meaning pilots that look as good as a movie but whose story lines eventually disappoint: From this past season’s contenders think Terra Nova, Alcatraz, Pan Am, The River and A Gifted Man.

And given how much financial stress key territories in Europe, including Italy and Spain, are under, there is likely to be downward pressure on pricing for series, despite claims by all the Hollywood distributors that the international TV business is largely recession-proof.

Among Disney’s top performers abroad are the just concluded Desperate Housewives, which set license fee records internationally when the show was launched eight years ago, the sturdy Grey’s Anatomy and the frosh fantasy Once Upon a Time.

"Our shows from ABC Family and ABC Studios have moved beyond television to become part of international culture and conversation," Pyne exuded, adding that his unit now sells programming into 230 territories, a total which presumably includes every last remote island with electricity on the planet.  

"Last year, our global TV audience grew by 40 million to more than three and a half billion people, roughly half of the world’s population," Pyne told the 600-odd foreign buyers on hand for the evening bash, which included not only a smattering of Disney brass but a plethora of talent from the company’s new and established shows.

This go-round, Disney is touting a half dozen prime-time contenders, all of which will air on its sister ABC Network, including the aforementioned Red Widow and Zero Hour. The former is a midseasoner based on a Dutch format featuring Radha Mitchell; the latter, also a mid-season entry, is executive produced by Paul T. Scheuring and stars Anthony Edwards. The company’s remaining new drama is the soapy Mistresses, which won’t premiere til next summer.

Among its new laffers, The Neighbors has preliminarily built buzz, and will be blessed with the post-Modern Family slot on ABC Wednesday nights come September. Also, getting laughs from the assembled Sunday was Malibu Country, toplining Reba McEntire and Lily Tomlin in a classic fish-out-of-water tale.

Another point Pyne emphasized during his pep talk was the ongoing effort at Disney to put its content on screens around the world within hours of U.S. broadcast, and sometimes simultaneously, instead of months later.

"As many of you are aware," he said, "we’re open to launching series in global markets before they’re available to U.S. audiences—as we did with Body of Proof last year and Missing and The River this year."

Following his opening remarks, Pyne turned the microphone over to the three creative executives in charge of the production divisions responsible for Disney’s output.

Sean Bailey, the president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production, introduced trailers for several of the studio’s upcoming features, including Tim Burton’s stop-motion, black and white 3D Frankenweenie; Oz: The Great and Powerful, an origins story about the Wizard of Oz directed by Sam Raimi; and The Lone Ranger as reinterpreted by Jerry Bruckheimer, starring Johnny Depp. "We’re working with three visionary filmmakers," Bailey said in introducing footage from the three upcoming releases.

Pyne then introduced a first-timer to the Disney Media Distribution international upfronts: Michael Riley, the president of ABC Family. He told the assembled that his unit is "better than anyone in reflecting the world in which millennials live," citing the success of hits like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Switched at Birth as evidence. He promised the cabler’s biggest summer ever in unveiling three other contenders, including a reality show called Beverly Hills Nannies and a dramedy with Sutton Foster called Bunheads.

To climax the presentation, Pyne passed the baton to Paul Lee, the president of ABC Entertainment Group, to unveil clips from ABC Studios’ slate. For his part, Lee made a point of singling out the Alphabet’s current success with the sexy White House drama Scandal, which hasn’t yet been licensed widely abroad, as well as the Eric McCormack topliner Perception, which launches this year on TNT.

As for the ABC prime-time newcomers Pyne will be selling this week, Lee put the accent on the writing, singling out the contribution of Twilight’s Melissa Rosenberg on Red Widow and the team behind The Neighbors, which he described as "the most sought after" in town.

Among the talent corralled to glad-hand with foreign clients for the after-party were Dana Delany (Body of Proof), McEntire and Tomlin (Malibu Country), Alyssa Milano (Mistresses), Jami Gertz (The Neighbors), Radha Mitchell (Red Widow), Madeleine Stowe and Emily VanCamp (Revenge), Kerry Washington (Scandal), and Anthony Edwards (Zero Hour). 

Also on hand to mix it up with the clients at the after-party were Anne Sweeney, the co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney ABC Television Group, and Alan Bergman, the president of Walt Disney Studios.

Although few foreign buyers would go out on a limb this early in the Screenings process, several said that there seemed to be "consistent high quality" among the new offerings. "Still," one of them added, "it doesn’t yet feel like a banner year. The last time that happened was the Grey’s Anatomy/Criminal Minds year—and that’s been a while."