Exclusive Interview: Lionsgate’s Kevin Beggs

PREMIUM: Kevin Beggs, the chairman of the Lionsgate Television Group, tells World Screen how remaining creator-driven, flexible and willing to form partnerships has been key to the studio’s success.

WS: Lionsgate has a reputation for pursuing various production models. Tell us about that.
BEGGS: Every show has a different model. We have the traditional model of script development and production of a pilot, the way we developed Nashville at ABC or, most recently, The Royals at E!, which had a script, then a pilot, then an evaluation period, then a first season order. E! has really fallen in love with The Royals. They announced a [second] season renewal six weeks before the first season premiered. That’s really rare. Then, we are working with [platforms] like Netflix and Hulu and WGN [America]—those are straight-to-series models, which involve just a script or two and then a pickup to series. So each project is different.

WS: Your projects are also known for being creatively driven.
BEGGS: We are creatively driven and often creator-driven. That is exciting and it gives the people we work with a certain amount of autonomy and freedom. As a studio, we look for buyers that will be a good fit with the creative team [of each show]. We also look to be champions of the [project] that the creator is putting together and sometimes its defenders if there is a fight or a dispute [with the network].

We think that an arms-length relationship between an independent and a network, whatever kind of network it is, is healthy for the business. It’s healthy for the show, because everyone’s interests, while sometimes different, are pulling toward the same goal of a great show. And everyone gets to a great show a little bit differently. A network gets focused on the network’s needs. The studio is focused on maximizing value and distribution and ensuring creator integrity. The creator is usually just focused on making a great show and on having the freedom to deliver on that. And to the extent that we can make their jobs easier in any way possible, that’s one of our roles.

WS: You work with a wide range of creators.
BEGGS: Everybody comes into a show with a certain level of experience. So someone like Jenji Kohan, who does Orange Is the New Black and did Weeds with us, is so highly experienced, she knows exactly what she wants and how to accomplish it. She just needs a framework, sometimes financial, to work within, and we just more or less stay out of her way. Others are new showrunners or are new to the medium entirely; they may be coming out of feature films. There are a whole bunch of different things that they want to know that are germane to the creative process, but are new for them. For example, we are working with Jason Reitman and Hulu on Casual. Jason is an amazing director and filmmaker but has never done television before. I ran into him at the AFI Awards and I asked how Casual was going, and he said he was just so excited about the writing process. He mentioned that, as a film screenwriter, he is typically alone writing in a solitary place, while in the television writers’ room it’s a free-flowing space for ideas, where one good idea is improved upon by another idea. The excitement and enthusiasm about that, we’re used to it—it’s the process we have all known in TV—but for him it was like finding a new toy! He had no idea how much fun it would be! So that was just great. Casual went to camera in March and represents yet another business model.

It feels like a great time to be in the content space, to be a seller and supplier. That is where we are putting our focus. We are looking to do more, and it feels like a lot of new clients are coming to the party, including existing networks that are reinvigorated or turning to scripted for the first time, like E! with The Royals. It’s an experiment for E!, one that they have completely gotten behind in a huge way. They have been an amazing partner. We are expecting great things of The Royals. It could completely change the fabric of a network that is well known and incredibly successful but looking to add yet another facet to itself. Our job, hopefully, is to help that happen.

WS: And you’ve been game changers for channels before: Mad Men with AMC, Orange Is the New Black for Netflix. Do digital channels have a different set of requirements than linear channels?
BEGGS: [Digital channels] don’t run commercials, so they have a longer running time [per episode]. The set of rights that they are looking to control and protect are different. The business side of [streaming services] is evolving. The creative is similar in most respects [to a linear channel], except that the way the audience member engages with them is so different. You can watch whenever you want. You can watch a whole series in a weekend. You can go back and re-watch and the storytelling becomes really interesting because people do go back and re-watch, and then watch again, from the beginning, knowing everything about how the season unfolded, viewing characters in a different way. I would say Jenji has really done that brilliantly on Orange, with the whole conceit of depicting flashbacks that give insight into the characters on the show. [A flashback] just changes your entire perspective on everything you know about that character and it drives you, as a viewer, to want to go back and watch again. Everyone talks about these serialized shows that are novelistic and Dickensian in structure. Great novels cry out to you, after a certain period of time, “re-read me!” Reading The Great Gatsby now is a completely different experience than when I read it the first time. Now I know a lot more and it has more context for me. I feel the same way about these serialized shows. The streaming services give you a really good chance, whether they are originals like Orange or Mad Men or Breaking Bad, to catch up and watch shows.

So streaming services have allowed more people into the conversation for both the original platform and the downstream user, even if these services become purveyors of originals. If someone asked today if it’s good for the TV ecosystem to have streaming services or if they add something, I would say I think they do; more people come in and they have an experience. People discover one show and say, Wow, if that one is so good, and everyone has been talking about this Golden Globe winner over here, I’ve got to start on that. And then [watching] just becomes a habit, and that is good for the business.

WS: Lionsgate has partnered with other companies to finance and produce shows. Do you continue to do that?
BEGGS: Chasing Life is part of our South Shore venture with Televisa. We did Ascension with our partners in Canada, Sea to Sky Studios, which is a venture with Thunderbird. [Lionsgate CEO] Jon Feltheimer has always espoused the wisdom of partnerships. He had a lot of partnerships going at Sony. He certainly made many partnership deals on the theatrical side, Pantelion [Films] maybe being the most visible, which led to South Shore. We’re smart enough to know what we know and what we don’t know. There is wisdom to a portfolio that is a mixture of solitary bets and covered bets. So we don’t mind that at all. And many of the networks that we’re selling shows to are looking for participations and partnerships, and if we can make the right deal, we are always open to that.