{"id":9041,"date":"2018-02-20T11:05:39","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T16:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/"},"modified":"2018-02-26T09:14:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T14:14:04","slug":"fremantlemedias-christian-vesper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Vesper of FremantleMedia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian Vesper, the executive VP and creative director for global drama at FremantleMedia,\u00a0tells <\/em>TV Drama\u00a0about the projects he\u2019s working on and offers up insights on the trends that are reshaping the international scripted business.<\/em><\/p>\n

FremantleMedia has dramatically ramped up its scripted activities over the last few years. In 2016, in line with that strategy, the company tapped SundanceTV veteran Christian Vesper as its executive VP and creative director for global drama. In his role, Vesper is working with FremantleMedia\u2019s group of companies on a diverse slate of high-end, distinctive titles, from period to contemporary, with a focus on delivering shows that can be rolled out around the world.<\/p>\n

\"***Image***\"TV DRAMA:<\/strong> What are some of the new FremantleMedia titles that you\u2019re most excited about?
\nVESPER:<\/strong> I\u2019m really excited about My Brilliant Friend<\/em>, which is the first in the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Novels<\/em> four-part book series. We\u2019re doing it with Wildside [in Italy], and the commissioning networks are Rai and HBO. It looks gorgeous; the director, Saverio Costanzo, has done an amazing job, the writers have done an amazing job. It\u2019s a mix of Italian writers and then we added an American writer as well. What\u2019s really exciting about it is that it\u2019s going to be the first Italian-language series on HBO. It speaks to the strength of the IP and team. We\u2019re shooting it outside of Naples in a town called Caserta. They built this gorgeous reproduction of a square in Naples in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re premiering Picnic at Hanging Rock<\/em> at Berlinale\u2019s Drama Series Days. That\u2019s something we\u2019ve been working on for a couple of years. I\u2019ve been working closely with FremantleMedia Australia since I got here almost two years ago. It stars Natalie Dormer and three extraordinary young actresses. It\u2019s written by Beatrix Christian and directed by Larysa Kondracki. It\u2019s a really vivid and exciting reimagination of the novel. It\u2019s very different from the movie. It\u2019s female-led\u2014the cast, director, producer and writer. It\u2019s a story that was written by Joan Lindsay and it is about young women, so it\u2019s nice to have it be interpreted by women. That\u2019s going onto BBC in the U.K., Amazon in the U.S. and Foxtel in Australia, and we\u2019ve sold it to a number of big territories in Europe as well.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s The Miracle<\/em>, which I\u2019m incredibly excited about. It\u2019s Sky Italia co-producing with ARTE and Kwa\u00ef in France. It\u2019s based on an original story and written by and partly directed by Niccol\u00f2 Ammaniti, one of the most important literary fiction writers in Italy right now. He\u2019s created this brilliant, baroque, Italian political horror story around a hollow China-made statue of the Virgin Mary that won\u2019t stop crying real blood. No one knows what\u2019s causing it. It sucks in the Prime Minister, scientists, the Vatican and the Mob. It\u2019s scary, thrilling and gorgeous, and no one has ever seen anything like it.<\/p>\n

We also have a comedy coming up called Hang Ups<\/em>, which is Stephen Mangan\u2019s version of Web Therapy<\/em>, the Lisa Kudrow show. It\u2019s hilarious. Steve plays an online therapist and all the episodes are full of interesting actor friends from London. It\u2019s not like a remake; it\u2019s a really specifically English, Stephen Mangan take on the idea of Web Therapy<\/em>. We\u2019ve been working with Slam Films, his production company with Andrew Lincoln, for the last couple of years. This is their first commission, so it\u2019s really exciting.<\/p>\n

We are in the early stages of working on Michael Haneke\u2019s first big drama series. He\u2019s a major filmmaker and he\u2019s done TV before but this is something really special. He is one of the great auteurs around. We continue to work with Paolo Sorrentino, and I can’t talk about it yet but we\u2019re about to launch a few more projects with other filmmakers who have won Palme d\u2019Ors.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Existing IP and recognizable names are major themes of your slate. Are those the sorts of things you need to have to cut through in the current drama marketplace?
\nVESPER:<\/strong> A good idea with a good writer attached always stands a good chance. The minute you start saying what everyone is looking for, it changes. The SVODs really want projects to come to them set up already with talent. With those projects, IP really helps, [as does] a well-known writer or director who people trust. And if you happen to have a big piece of casting talent, all the better. That makes it easier to set up. But also, the challenge we have as distributors and producers\u2014we\u2019re both\u2014is how to push the conversation toward new ideas. Those are the things that really seem to ultimately pop. Look at something like Stranger Things<\/em>, which came out of left field. It was unique. That\u2019s what people want. It\u2019s always the conversation on this side of the business: what is clearly going to work and where are the edges of what is new and interesting?<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> We keep hearing that there\u2019s a premium on talent. How are you finding new voices?
\nVESPER:<\/strong> We spend a lot of time at the theater and watching movies from festivals and talking to reps we trust who are great at cultivating new talent. The tricky part is, how do you pair them with a producer or writer that the networks or SVODs trust? That\u2019s a role we can play as producers who work across various production companies. We have a lot of producers within our group, like Wildside and Kate Harwood\u2019s Euston Films, who have been around for a long time and are trusted by commissioners. It\u2019s that alchemy of putting all the right pieces together.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How developed does a show need to be before you start pitching it?
\nVESPER: <\/strong>It depends on the project. When I was a commissioner, it was great when someone came in and knew the end of the season. But if someone like Steven Soderbergh comes in and has a nugget of an idea, you\u2019re probably going to go for it. Then you look at a lot of the European directors we work with. We\u2019ll go out with a novel-sized outline where they thought the whole season through\u2014it\u2019s just the way they develop\u2014because they see it as a movie. That definitely helps.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How has the transition been for you to the production and distribution side of the business?
\nVESPER:<\/strong> It\u2019s been great. Look, it\u2019s tough on the broadcast side these days. There is a lot of competition. And you\u2019re competing against companies with vast, seemingly unlimited resources. That\u2019s the challenge there. Because of all the competition, a lot of audiences are being served and it makes room for a lot of new ideas. Being on the side that is supporting producers and writers is exciting. I like the entrepreneurial side of it. And FremantleMedia has given me a lot of encouragement to build the business.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> I imagine it\u2019s great fun to be working with producers from everywhere on new projects.
\nVESPER:<\/strong> Extremely. It\u2019s a fun international job. It\u2019s been great learning how each of our producers in their various territories do things. And also working to help them really do what they do best on a big stage. Our producers are all at the top of their game. It\u2019s about how we can support them in becoming global, which is a fun opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The executive VP and creative director for global drama offers insights on trends that are reshaping the international scripted business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":9042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,70],"tags":[912,126],"class_list":["post-9041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-christian-vesper","tag-fremantlemedia","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nChristian Vesper of FremantleMedia - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christian Vesper of FremantleMedia - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The executive VP and creative director for global drama offers insights on trends that are reshaping the international scripted business.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-20T16:05:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-26T14:14:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2017\/07\/2018-02-20-Christian-Vesper-516.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"359\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/\",\"name\":\"Christian Vesper of FremantleMedia - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-20T16:05:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-26T14:14:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/fremantlemedias-christian-vesper\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Christian Vesper of FremantleMedia\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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