WME Independent Co-Head: “IP Gives You Protection” in Today’s “Really Hard” Film Business
“Good Stories: Originals, Adaptations and Remakes” were in focus at the 68th edition of the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday in a panel discussion presented in association with The Hollywood Reporter.
The panelists were Alex Walton, co-head, WME Independent, Kevin Loader, producer and co-founder of Free Range Film, Tolu Stedford, executive producer and CEO at Story Compound, and Meg Thomson, executive vp, worldwide content at Globalgate Entertainment, with Rowan Woods, creative director of the Edinburgh TV Festival serving as session chair.
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“We’re in a time when the business is really, really hard,” Walton assessed early on in the discussion. “So I think IP gives you protection more than anything.”
His team puts together 16-18 independent movies every year, “and we don’t have the luxury of having IP, and many of those are generally independent stories, so they’re often original,” he shared. “If you have something with IP, it gives you a bit of protection” and “helps us approach a cautious marketplace.”
Loader echoed that. “Having something behind you that’s already got name recognition, whether it’s a novel or a play or a podcast or whatever the hell it is these days, or a remake, it does calm the nerves of anxious financiers and studio executives, because they can look at something that’s already been successful,” he explained. “Obviously, they’re terrified of failure all the time. So it does help slightly in that regard.”
That is particularly true for early and late in the process. “I think it helps you at the front end, sometimes helps you at the back end,” Loader offered. “There’s a bit in the middle when you’re trying to get the money for your film, where I think the IP is probably less important in most cases that we see, because it’s mostly about talent.”
IP or any other type of help is particularly key for projects focused on diversity and inclusion, Stedford emphasized. “Oh my God, if you’re talking about diverse stories, my lord, you need that help. We would love to say that we’re in a position where we can get commissions and money is bountiful, but we’re not,” she shared. “And the honest truth is that when we talk about diverse stories, they were already risky and they were already hard to finance, and so now, added to this current climate, actually, IP is even more valuable.”
Proving that you are “actually understanding your audience and proving your audience” is also important, Stedford said.
So remakes of proven IP can attract funding and interest but there is even more to them, Thomson said. “I do a lot of remakes at Globalgate, and especially when we’re dealing with smaller territories or countries, they will take the actual marketing plan of the original film, and and they’ll be able to build on that and use that,” she explained. “So at least it provides in certain regions where they don’t have [established] screenwriters and things like that a story, story structure and [you can] build from that. And so it’s a way to get new stories and new filmmakers into the rhythm.”
Globalgate doesn’t just look at big Hollywood remake opportunities. “We will take a Spanish story and remake it in Korea or a Korean story and remake it in Argentina,” Thomson explained. “So it’s across all boundaries, and it’s a way to still be authentic. You can still take the structure of the story and put your own cultural specificity onto it. … So, we can use that IP in our own territory.”
With streamers having deep pockets and competition for content being intense, name or even star power can help producers attract IP. “My experience, especially on the more premium end when books have been sold, … producers teaming up with talent to be able to go and present themselves to the rights holder is a tantalizing addition to any presentation,” Walton explained. ”When you know that you actually have an actor who’s actually going to be involved, a filmmaker who’s going to be involved, to take that to screen, [that is a] huge benefit.”
Even directors and other creatives can become like IP of their own. Walton was asked if a brilliant director, say Pablo Larraín came to him with a great original idea, would he immediately say yes? “[It’s] not immediately a yes, but also he becomes a bit of IP,” the industry veteran said. “Now he’s someone who has value, if you like. He’s got some currency. So he makes it a little bit easier. He often makes things about [famous] people, whether that’s Jackie Kennedy, whether that’s Princess Diana. He connects stories, he finds his own moment and story that appeals to him. And his style about someone who has some mythology behind them makes it easier to communicate.”
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