Exclusive Interview: eOne’s John Morayniss Talks Power of Partnerships

PREMIUM: John Morayniss, the CEO of Entertainment One (eOne) Television, tells World Screen that he is a firm believer in the power of partnerships, whether co-financing series with international partners or investing in production companies.

WS: There are several broadcasters attached to your new drama series Ransom. How did it come about?
MORAYNISS: Ransom is one of those great co-productions that started very organically with a relatively new production company in France called Wildcats Productions; we’ve had a relationship with [founders] Valerie Pechels and Odile McDonald for a number of years. They went after this great piece of IP—the rights to the life story of Laurent Combalbert, who is considered the preeminent hostage and crisis negotiator; he’s one of the top negotiators in the world and an extraordinary man. Wildcats acquired those rights, thought the story would make a great TV series, sold it into development at TF1 and brought it to us. We helped them with packaging it, bringing in a writing team and Frank Spotnitz, and selling it—ultimately to CBS, to Global in Canada and to RTL in Germany. So it’s a co-production with four key broadcast partners, and it shot in Toronto and the South of France. Even the subject matter is global because these crises take place all over the world. Creatively, it feels very organic in terms of its global scope, and from a production and financing point of view, it works well.

WS: How you have seen co-financing and co-production deals evolve? Are they becoming more necessary as production costs rise and as broadcasters and viewers expect more sophisticated shows?
MORAYNISS: There is no question that partnerships, as a whole, are becoming more important. It’s a more complicated market; it’s a much more global market. There’s a lot of competition. I think the bar has been set very high for content and, as a result, budgets have gone up. There’s not a direct correlation between quality and what you spend—some of the most critically acclaimed shows are low-budget shows—but there is some connection, so we’re seeing budgets go up. So many new original productions are shooting in North America and around the world, and high-end talent has become more expensive. As a result of that, the need for partnerships is becoming more important, so obviously it’s not just about financing but about creative as well. The challenge is marrying smart deals and financing structures with the right creative approach and mindset. You need your production partners, your buyers, your distribution partners, everyone to be more or less on the same page when it comes to what you’re trying to make. That’s not always easy when you’ve got a lot of voices in the room who all have a stake in the project, financially and creatively, but you make it work. Certainly, eOne has had a lot of experience for many years doing co-productions, and now we’re seeing a lot of new entrants into that market, but I think [partnerships have] become a necessity to make high-end programming.

WS: Are the best projects the ones that are creatively driven?
MORAYNISS: Yes, 100 percent, always, I don’t think there’s any exception. It [must] start with the creative. You figure out that something is a great project, and then you start working with partners that have the same vision as you. The creative team is crucial—that is the number one priority for any co-production. Then you have to figure out the financing. But if you don’t have that strong creative connection with the partners—if you don’t have that strong vision that you’re all aligned with—it doesn’t matter how smart you are in the deal-making and the financing side, it’s not going to work.

WS: Is it still important for your projects to have a U.S. outlet, or can they be successful even without a U.S. broadcaster?
MORAYNISS: They can still be successful. There’s no question the U.S. is still the biggest market, and there’s a lot of value in it, so if we don’t have a U.S. buyer, we’re missing a great opportunity to monetize the show and maximize the value for eOne and its partners. Secondly, there’s no question that, in addition to being an important market from a monetization point of view, the U.S. market validates a show for the rest of the world. It’s not a necessity, though, and there have been many shows we’ve done over the years that we haven’t sold in the U.S. but which still made sense for us; we’ve had subsidy dollars, other co-production partners around the world, but it’s not an ideal scenario.

WS: Tell us about the partnership with Mark Gordon.
MORAYNISS: It’s great, and it’s reflective of what eOne is all about: we’re a studio, we’re an organization that nurtures and supports the best talent and companies from all over the world. We’ve been focusing a lot on the North American marketplace as well as the U.K. and now Australia, and Mark is an A-list producer, one of the top producers in the world of scripted content. He certainly has a brand in the procedural world, but he’s also developing a lot of content and has had a lot of content that has worked in pay cable, and now he’s working with all the SVOD services, so it’s a great partnership for us. He is an amazing developer and producer, and he has great talent relationships. The partnership helps eOne expand its reach and connections; it helps us build our brand, and ultimately, what we’re excited about is all the shows that he brings to the table, and we’re selling internationally. Shows like Designated Survivor and Conviction have sold incredibly well around the world.

WS: Tell us about some of eOne’s upcoming shows.
MORAYNISS: We’re in preproduction on Sharp Objects, which we’re doing with HBO, starring Amy Adams and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Marti Noxon is writing the script based on a Gillian Flynn book—so that’s something we’re excited about. It’s the biggest-budget series we’ve ever done. We also have Mary Kills People, an exciting show with a unique, different approach to drama. It was created by a young writer named Tara Armstrong, who came out of the Canadian Film Centre. We sold it to Global in Canada and recently made a sale to Lifetime as well. We’re also excited about the crime drama ICE, which is our production with DIRECTV. We’ve had a long relationship with DIRECTV and the Audience Network. ICE [recently aired] in the U.S., and we’re selling it around the world.

We have a lot of great scripted series, and we’re also building on the unscripted side as well. We have our relationship with Renegade 83—we own the majority stake in Renegade, and they do Naked and Afraid for Discovery—and we’re [continuing to grow] our [factual] and unscripted business as well.

WS: Are you also moving into short-form content? What kind of potential do you see in that business?
MORAYNISS: The digital space is interesting. We made an investment in a digital-first, scripted content company called Canvas Media Studios, run by Bernie Su and David Tochterman, and we’re excited about that. Short-form content in itself is tougher to monetize, but what we’re interested in is the R&D part of it and accessing the talent that comes out of nonlinear platforms and YouTube channels. We’re interested in developing that talent and hopefully transferring that content from nonlinear to linear. The lines are so blurred now between those platforms that for us it is all about, Is it a good piece of content? Is it an interesting piece of IP? Is it talent we want to invest in? And if it makes sense for a YouTube channel or a go90 or a YouTube Red or MTV, it doesn’t matter. The lines are blurred even between film and TV; we’re finding more and more crossover of talent, crossover of IP. It’s about finding the best way to tell the story. If it makes sense to tell it in a short-form format, we’ll do it, but ultimately the monetization of content still makes sense first and foremost in the traditional [22-minute or 44-minute] formats.

WS: Is it harder to find talent now, when there are so many outlets doing originals?
MORAYNISS: It’s getting harder and harder because the demand for original content has never been greater, especially in scripted. That’s the good news, but the volume of original production has never been greater, so that’s the bad news. What that means is that if you are an A-lister, you are in demand. So it’s a great time to be supplying talent to the marketplace, but if you’re an acquirer of talent, you’re going to pay more for it, so that aspect is more challenging now. On the other hand, what you constantly have to think about is that it’s not just about cutting the check, it’s about finding a piece of material that speaks to a certain actor or writer or filmmaker or director or whoever it is. So we’re spending a lot more time going after IP and going after high-end intellectual property, like books or underlying rights to other material—Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn’s book that we developed originally as a film project but then transferred into TV, is a great example of that. We just announced a deal for Holly Cave’s novel The Architecture of Heaven, on which we’re partnering with producer Michael London. The idea of going after high-end IP that can attract talent is becoming more important.