Elizabeth Guider Reports: Disney Unveils New Slate

LOS ANGELES: The Mouse House brought out its top guns Sunday night for the 11th annual Disney International Upfronts, which is the first chance foreign program buyers have to savor the new shows licensed by the Hollywood studio, reports Elizabeth Guider from Los Angeles.

The event is part of the LA Screenings, which sees some 1,250 overseas execs descend upon Hollywood for marathon viewing of new shows, both for broadcast and, increasingly, for cable.

The lineup unveiled on the Burbank lot Sunday evening included 13 new and 11 returning series, making it one of the more prolific development seasons for that studio in recent years.

Disney brass also managed to herd a plethora of TV talent to the event, including multiple cast members of almost all its new network shows as well as returnees from Body of Proof, Castle, Cougar Town, Criminal Minds, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. Among the stars putting in an appearance were Dana Delaney (Body of Proof), Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives), Ginnifer Goodwin (Once Upon a Time), Robert Carlyle (Once Upon a Time) and Madeleine Stowe (Revenge).

Ben Pyne, the president of global distribution for Disney Media Networks, kicked the festivities off, suggesting that this fall’s lineup will deliver "even more drama, more laughter and more adventure" to the conglom’s huge library. =

For her part, Anne Sweeney, the president of Disney/ABC Television Group and co-chair of Disney Media Networks, put the accent on Disney’s "strong brands, innovative culture and incredible storytelling.

"We make that kind of television for millions of viewers around the world," she told the 700-odd buyers who showed up for the event. In the coming days, the buyers be screening entire episodes of Disney’s new offerings as well as those from its rival major studios.

In many cases, foreign buyers have output deals with several majors and hence have simply come to see what they are getting in their deals—and what their competitors, who often have deals with the other majors, will be taking home. In other cases, like Canada and Britain, there are no real output deals and buyers pick and choose on the open market.

Sweeney made a point of emphasizing the importance of the company’s brands outside of the ABC Network: "Our power comes from great content as well as a portfolio of brands—Disney Junior, Disney XD, Disney Channel, ABC Family and ABC —that reaches virtually every audience, from preschoolers to adults, and everyone in between."

ABC Family, in particular, she continued, is "a brand we’ve built to resonate with the young-adult audience that is increasingly important for everyone in our business."

This year, she noted, was the biggest development season in the history of ABC Family—giving millennials even more to watch. New shows featured Sunday night included ABC Family’s State of Georgia, Nine Lives of Chloe King, Switched at Birth, and Jane By Design.

Localized production is also increasingly important to Disney, Sweeney added, singling out ABC Studios new series, Missing, starring Ashley Judd, which is currently being shot in Rome, Vienna and Prague.

Rich Ross, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, also addressed the assembled crowd, putting the accent on the feature films which generally make up a sizeable portion of the packages licensed internationally. He introduced clips of two upcoming Disney movies, The Muppets and Pixar’s Brave, and stressed that without the support of the foreign buyers, Disney would "not be able to afford to do the quality of work it does."

Finally, the new president of ABC Entertainment Group, Paul Lee, took the stage to introduce the new shows on the company’s roster and the acting talent and producing talent behind them.

"At our best," he said, "we make big-tent shows that are culturally-defining, they’re smart and they have a huge amount of heart.” Lee then ticked off Grey’s Anatomy, Body of Proof and Castle as three standouts currently on the schedule.

As for the fall hopefuls, Lee said the company was taking "some big swings with major talent both onscreen and off. Time and time again this year we’ve used international casts, international storytelling and in many cases international locations to drive our shows."

He described getting Ashley Judd to work in series television in Missing as "a huge coup."

Among the other contenders, he called Once Upon a Time "an amazing piece of television, which like Lost features a powerful cast of characters who are trapped not on an island, but this time in a small town in Maine."

As for the drama Revenge, directed by Phillip Noyce, it is, he said, "one of the highest testing pilots we’ve ever seen at ABC.

And Scandal, he noted, is from "the inspired pen of Shonda Rhimes." With Kerry Washington as a tough DC crisis-solver, it’s "a procedural that’s all about character," he argued.

Afterwards buyers mingled with the stars and Disney executives. Screening sessions begin in earnest Monday as all the studios begin mass day-long viewing marathons.

"There’s more product than ever for us to take a look at," one buyer told World Screen Newsflash at the Disney function. "We have to take copious notes now just to remember what we’ve seen."

As for actually buying, the Canadians have apparently already made their picks and returned home to the Great White North. Scuttlebutt Sunday had it that the Rogers-owned Citytv group outflanked its rivals and picked off a substantial number of high-profile titles on offer; Bell-owned CTV came away with a few choice titles as well but Shaw’s Global only made a small number of acquisitions.