Elizabeth Guider Reports: Disney Unveils New Slate to Buyers

PREMIUM: Disney opened its Burbank studio doors wide Sunday evening to welcome some 650 foreign TV program buyers for the L.A. Screenings, the Hollywood majors’ first sales bazaar of the year for its new prime-time series, where Alan Horn and Anne Sweeney emphasized the company’s ability to deliver "great storytelling and iconic characters."

At whom did most of the attending buyers want to point their cameras? Scandal star Kerry Washington, but the actress was off shooting a movie, so during the after-party they settled for her co-stars, snapping shots and talking about the twists in that hit’s just-wrapped season finale. Several of Disney Media Distribution’s new series on offer also enticed a slew of shutterbugs: especially Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., whose action-packed clip went over especially well with the crowd of foreign clients and whose cast members gamely submitted to all the media attention.

"A lot of energy went into these trailers and clips, and the results are, well, pretty impressive," one European buyer opined, "but, as always, it’ll be about how well they execute beyond the pilots themselves. They [at ABC] have a lot to fix on their own schedule, so we’ll see. Much of what they showed us looked stunning; at least nothing made me cringe."

Buyers from most major territories enjoy output deals with one or another Hollywood studio, so they are principally here in Tinseltown to see what they have to take, as it were, and, perhaps as importantly, what their rivals will be taking home from other studios to whom they are committed. (The afore-mentioned buyer has a volume deal with Disney, so is obligated in any case to take most of that company’s shows.)

Throughout the upcoming week, phalanxes of the 1,200 or so buyers from abroad will be shuttled from one studio lot to another to sift through all the new broadcast series on offer—this go-round, 30 dramas, which is the most sought-after genre by international clients, are vying for deals. That’s double the number of hours introduced last year.

The only buyers from abroad who have to commit on the spot in Los Angeles are the three major Canadian players—Rogers , Shaw and Bell—who, among them, spend upwards of $400 million on U.S. series each year. Per sources Sunday night, the Canucks (who arrived last week and have already screened most everything) are now considering closing their deals by this Tuesday before heading home to set their schedules. Hottest bids so far among these rivals from the Great White North: for the Chuck Lorre laffer Mom, which is sold by Warner Bros., and for The Blacklist, an espionage drama toplining James Spader, which is being licensed by Sony Pictures Television.

Meanwhile, Disney’s kick-off event brought out all that conglom’s relevant executives, including Alan Horn, who is now in charge of overseeing the various film banners, and Anne Sweeney, who does the same for the TV side of the company.

During an hour-long presentation, complete with plentiful clips and walk-ons from a parade of talent in new and renewed shows, both Horn and Sweeney put the accent on Disney’s reputed ability to come up with "great storytelling and iconic characters."

"Our shows and brands have a global perspective and the demand for our series abroad continues to grow," Sweeney told the assembled.

For his part, Horn, who is just completing his first year at Disney as chairman of the movie studio after a dozen at Warner Bros., touted the tentpole strategy and the international resonance of pics made under the Pixar, Marvel, Disney and Lucasfilm—the latest addition to the fold—banners.

After showing snippets of a dozen pictures, from The Lone Ranger to Monsters University, Horn suggested that buyers really needn’t go anywhere else in Hollywood to find what they might want: "Just stay here and go to the beach in your free time," he half-joked in extolling the virtues of his upcoming slate.

But foreign buyers have their work cut out for them: a lot to see and a lot to digest about the likelihood of any particular series’ survival given the challenging state of U.S. network TV and the inroads being made by cable and new-media players into their audience ratings.

Coming off what is generally reckoned a lackluster broadcast season—only ten of the three dozen freshman class of dramas and sitcoms will return for a second season—Disney took the wraps off nine of its own new hopefuls, almost all destined for sibling web ABC. (One limited run drama, Intelligence, is earmarked for CBS starting in January.)

ABC clocked in fourth this season in the key 18-49 demo, though the Alphabet continues to perform better with women than its competitors.

As a general rule, if a network falters, it tends to greenlight more pilots the following year. One new emphasis at ABC: an effort to entice more male viewers. Another, a concerted attempt to ramp up sexiness and edge by commissioning limited-run series to do their cable rivals one better.

This time around the six Hollywood studios are pitching 52 new fiction series for fall, midseason or limited run whenever, up from 36 last year. (Among the few that are returning in September are ABC’s Nashville, which is licensed by Lionsgate, as well as CBS’ Elementary, Fox’s The Following, which Warner Bros. handles, and NBC’s Chicago Fire.)

In his opening remarks to the buyers, Ben Pyne, president of global distribution at Disney Media Networks, put the accent on Disney’s global reach and its dependability as a partner for quality programming.

"Each of our brands has the ability to create a sense of anticipation and excitement—to take viewers to places they’ve never been while providing relatable, personal connections," he said. "In a world where viewers have so many choices, it’s strong, trusted brands and high-quality storytelling that break through the clutter."

Other major distributors—Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, CBS Studios International, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures Television—will similarly unveil sizeable new slates of fiction fare during the upcoming week in hopes that a larger percentage of these newbies will catch fire, both domestically and abroad, than did their most recent predecessors.

The six companies mint upwards of $8 billion a year all-told from their free TV, pay TV, SVOD and other new-media platform deals around the world for their TV (and feature film) assets, with the preponderance of that revenue coming from the license fees for multi-year drama series.

Given its fourth place finish in the ratings this season, ABC is bulking up big time for the fall, with several high-cost, high-intensity dramas, most notably the spinoff Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and the aforementioned Marvel’s Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., a project inspired by a short that went out with The Avengers movie that Disney chief Bob Iger himself thought had potential.

Both series drew warm applause and positive comments from the assembled foreign clients Sunday as did a half-hour comedy called Mixology, which one European buyer said was "the freshest concept I’ve seen so far." That series takes place largely in one bar over one night and involves shifting relationships among the clientele.

As ever at the Screenings public events, studio executives were at pains to point out the promise of their upcoming schedule, the top-tier talent behind and in front of their cameras and their ever more energetic commitment to helping their international partners maximize the potential of their American purchases.

Among the talent who graced the event from the nine upcoming and dozen returning series were James Cromwell and Henry Thomas from Betrayal, Teri Polo from ABC Family’s The Fosters, Intelligence‘s Josh Holloway and Marg Helgenberger, Killer Women‘s Tricia Helfer and Michael Trucco as well as Omar Epps and Frances Fisher from Resurrection.

Returning talent included Castle’s Nathan Fillion, Criminal Minds’ Shemar Moore, Ginnifer Goodwin from Once Upon a Time and Revenge‘s Nick Wechsler.