Fifth Season Selling $1B Worth Of Apple TV+ Content At London TV Screenings Including Jason Momoa, Nicole Kidman, M. Night Shyamalan Shows

Fifth Season Selling $1B Worth Of Apple TV+ Content At London TV Screenings Including Jason Momoa, Nicole Kidman, M. Night Shyamalan Shows

EXCLUSIVE: Fifth Season is selling more than $1B worth of Apple TV+ content including Jason Momoa-starrer See, Nicole Kidman’s Roar and M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant at the London TV Screenings.

Prentiss Fraser, Fifth Season’s president of TV distribution, said the move realizes the outfit’s long-term strategy of landing big streamer shows that can then be sold in their second window to smaller buyers.

She said there is “little crossover” between Apple TV+ subscribers and regular linear broadcast viewers in crucial territories, which highlights the opportunities for second window. The UK, for example, is estimated to have around 2 million Apple TV+ subs – just 3% of the population.

Fifth Season’s London Apple slate includes four seasons of Shyamalan’s psychological horror Servant, three seasons of Steven Knight’s Momoa sci-fi vehicle See and another three of Octavia Spencer-starring legal drama Truth Be Told. There is also anthology series Roar starring Kidman and UK mystery show The Essex Serpent featuring Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes. Most have been running for several years. Fraser said the shows across the Apple slate cost more than $1B to make.

“The opportunity for linear broadcasters here is incredible,” Fraser told Deadline. “It’s not often that they get the ability to access shows at these budget levels and at the same time the talent are really excited to reach a broader audience on a market by market basis. They are huge stars who are often asked by fans, ‘When can I see your shows?’.”

The clutch of premium drama series are helped along by the existence of readymade marketing assets, Fraser added, while she pointed to a future Fifth Season pipeline that includes the likes of Severance and Slow Horses. “There aren’t many sure things out there and it kind of feels like this is one of them,” she added.

“Specific and surgical” buying Prentiss Fraser

Turning to the tricky economic headwinds and their impact on sales houses, Fraser said buyers are being “really specific and surgical about what they are looking for” in the current climate, which is no bad thing.

“When everything was really difficult last year, especially in America, [buyers] were very indecisive and that was time consuming [for us],” she added. “It’s quite refreshing now for buyers to know what they are looking for so everyone can move forwards.”

Fraser did, however, point to the challenges of the “surgical” approach, as “if you don’t have that thing they are looking for, then you have to wait till you have it.”

“So you need to make sure you’re talking to everyone – it’s important to leave no stone unturned,” she said.

With that in mind, Fraser revealed that Fifth Season has struck numerous deals for one of its non-Apple jewels, Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy.

The BBC/BritBox show starring Industry’s David Jonsson has been picked up in Europe by regular Christie buyers such as Movistar Plus+ (Spain), TV2 (Denmark) and Canal+ (France), while Fifth Season has also inked deals with BBC Studios Australia and New Zealand, CJ ENM (South Korea) and NHK Enterprises for Mystery Channel (Japan). The show launches on BritBox International next month in the U.S., Canada and South Africa.

“People are so familiar with the [Agatha Christie] books and brand so there is this built-in awareness,” Fraser said. “Dollars are fewer and further between this year so if you can get a jumpstart on not trying to market something from scratch then that is a leg up.”

While rating well, Murder is Easy garnered mixed reviews and was called out by some critics for being over-zealous in its decision to break away from the original source material, but Fraser said audiences expect this.

“Everyone expects a fresh take on an adaptation and no one wants a direct translation,” she added. “There has to be something left to the imagination and a surprise factor.”

She hailed the decision to cast up-and-comer Jonsson in the lead role and pointed to left-field casting decisions from recent Christie adaptations such as John Malkovich playing Poirot in 2018’s The ABC Murders.

Murder is Easy will be on sale from Fifth Season this week alongside the likes of Clive Owen-starrer Monsieur Spade and premium doc Marilyn Manson: Unmasked.

Notably, the sales house has eschewed the established practice of hosting one traditional screening for all buyers and will instead offer numerous bespoke screenings to smaller numbers of buyers.

Fraser explained: “We looked at the attendees and at our slate and thought, ‘Well 40 of these people will want to watch that and the other 60 will want to watch that,’ so why don’t we be ultra surgical. I think the experience will be much more valuable.”

Fraser predicted the practice will become more commonplace as sellers “adjust,” and this may be impacted by the impending relocation of MIP TV to London that could come as soon as next year.

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