Q&A with MarVista’s Vanessa Shapiro

LOS ANGELES: Vanessa Shapiro, the executive VP of distribution at MarVista Entertainment, tells World Screen about the company’s TV-movie slate, its emphasis on titles that encourage co-viewing and its plans to expand into scripted series.

WS: What’s driving the gains in MarVista’s international-distribution business?
SHAPIRO: What’s driving our business internationally is what buyers are looking for, and there continues to be a strong demand for quality movies. We know that Christmas movies do really well internationally—we try to have four to five of those to offer every year. Disaster movies also have a solid appeal, especially in Asia, so we try to have one or two of those per year. And we continue to see strong demand, particularly from Europe, for our thrillers, which consistently perform positively on Lifetime here in the U.S. There are new platforms emerging everywhere, and we’re looking at that as an opportunity for us to diversify our business and our content.

WS: Tell us about the demand you’re seeing for shows with co-viewing potential.
SHAPIRO: We have been aware of the demand in the global market for programming that can be co-viewed and enjoyed by parents and kids alike, and that’s the reason we jumped on the opportunity to get involved with The Inspectors, which airs here in the U.S. on CBS in its “Dream Team” programming block, and which we launched at MIPCOM last year. It is inspired by real-life crime cases handled by the United States Postal Inspection Service and focuses on teenager Preston Wainwright (Bret Green), who overcomes being paralyzed in a car accident to thrive and work as an intern alongside his U.S. Postal Inspector mom. Together they solve crimes involving internet scams.

And new to MIP this year is Annabelle Hooper and the Ghosts of Nantucket, which stars Bailee Madison (Just Go With It, Brothers, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark) and Robert Capron (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Way Way Back) [and is] about friends who follow a trail of clues as they investigate a 200-year-old mystery uncovered by their 15-year-old aspiring novelist pal Annabelle Hooper. It’s got all the fun characters—the gentlemanly thieves, eccentric psychics, a shadowy figure dressed in white, and even a mysterious boy named Billy—all while engaging viewers in solving the mystery, too.

Christmas movies are the perfect example of titles with co-viewing opportunities, such as A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale, a feel good story about a privileged college student who must learn to put aside her selfish ways in order to help save the local dog park before it is demolished on Christmas. We’ll have at least three new Christmas movies heading into MIPCOM.

Together with Two For The Money Media and Disney, we’ve developed several Disney movies, which were produced in Canada and distributed by MarVista worldwide and outside of Canada. There have been at least one a year for the past several years. The last one was Mark & Russell’s Wild Ride, which we just released at NATPE. The Disney movies are an ideal opportunity for co-viewing with the family. Co-viewing is becoming more and more important as families want to find content and entertainment that they can view and enjoy together. Also, the core of the company and our mission statement is always to provide quality entertainment for the whole family.

We have a very diverse catalogue—we provide animation to Christmas movies, to rom-coms to thrillers for Lifetime, to Disney co-pros to disaster-action movies. In the international marketplace, we meet with all the broadcasters and do business with every single territory in the world because we do offer something for everyone.

WS: The drama series business is booming worldwide. Do you see that having an impact on your TV-movie business?
SHAPIRO: We’re diversifying our content, so we don’t see our movies as TV movies anymore. We’re expanding into theatrical. Some of our movies have been presented at film festivals in the U.S. We just did a horror movie called Most Likely to Die. We’re trying to expand our horizons because, you’re right, there’s a lot of content competing for the best slots. The landscape is changing drastically. In the next few years everything is going to change. We’re not going to have TV movies versus theatrical. It’s just going to be about how [consumers] access those movies.

WS: I know MarVista has a dedicated digital-distribution business. How are you maximizing the long-tail value of your shows?
SHAPIRO: It is all about windowing and maximizing each window. We’ve negotiated deals with all the major U.S. platforms. We have also secured global deals with Netflix. With all the new platforms and the MVPDs, the purpose is to maximize value and become a solid mini studio.

We have so much content that we are in a very good place versus many other distributors. In 2016, we’re launching 60 movies—15 per quarter. With this kind of volume, you have the luxury of catering to everyone. So let’s say, for example, you have a broadcaster that wants one Christmas movie and a digital platform that also wants one. They both can either share a title by windowing it at different times, or they each can have a different title exclusively. We have enough content to really cater to the needs of our clients. That’s the most important message. MarVista wanted to do a theatrical release in the U.S., and after research on U.S. demand, it was determined to produce Most Likely to Die, which is also believed to be great content for the digital space. The Christmas movies are produced for the U.S. market, and some of those are positioned in our digital pipeline, while others serve the large international demand. We develop strategies for each title, domestically and internationally, for how we’ll release each. It’s like a puzzle!

WS: What are your priorities for MarVista’s distribution business in the year ahead?
SHAPIRO: We are really gearing towards getting into series. We have the core movie business growing steadily. It’s a well-oiled machine. We’ll have the same volume [of movies] in 2017, but we do want to ramp up our series. We have a couple in development now, of which some will be announced in May/June. It’s the natural next step for us. And we’re also getting more into the theatrical space. However, we’re cautious in everything we do. Just as we grew our business on the movie side steadily over the last 13 years, we want to do the same for the rest of the business. And we’re very much paying attention to the needs and wants of the marketplace. Things change constantly. Some days people want cop procedurals, and then they want a comedy or a hospital show. We gather the information, and then internally with the production team, we look at what we can develop and where we can find a home for it.