The idea is to turn The Head into a true detective-style anthology series.
Ran Tellem, director of International Content Development at The Mediapro Studio, was present at Conecta Fiction to speak about his functions within the Mediapro Group studio, the projects he currently promotes and the international work methodology that he promotes.
“Mediapro is a very large company in Spain, so my role is more to feed and work on ideas and productions that are made outside of Spain and I do this by working with Mediapro’s international offices around the world and creating alliances and seeking partners”, he summarized about his work at The Mediapro Studio.
In that sense, the executive regretted that, just when the first projects of his unit began to see the light, the Covid pandemic paralyzed everything.
“We have grown very quickly, the Covid really came when we were starting to explode, so to speak. We hope it will be a short break and that we can work at full capacity,” he said.
These first projects include Kosta (a Spain-Finland co-production) and The Head, an ambitious international thriller that was born with the screens of HBO Asia and Hulu Japan already secured and that has been sold to almost 30 territories.
“The journey began three years ago, when we met with the writers. We already knew how the first 15 minutes of the series were going to be, because we had pitched them in Series Mania… but we had to invent the rest,” he recalled.
“There we established the pillars of the project … It is a survival thriller, it is a murder mystery, but there is no police investigation,” he added.
Already released in Japan, Asia, Spain and about to reach new territories, for Telem there is no doubt that it is a project capable of traveling around the world.
“I think we all identify with the dilemmas of the series and those dilemmas can travel the world. I think it is a very peculiar project, because it is very international, it does not belong to any nation. It is not related to a specific country, but it does speak of something very human,” he explained.
Asked if there will be a second season, Telem revealed that the idea is for there to be one. In fact, he announced that they are already working on the development of it, which would transform the project into an anthological series in the best True Detective style.
“I don’t want to spoil it, but there are a lot of characters that don’t end up alive, so this creates a creative problem about what to do in season two. We are brainstorming season two and the direction that the writers and the management team are taking is to keep those central elements of the thriller and the police in an isolated place … Somehow we are thinking of a True Detective type project, that even if it is a limited series can be returned with similar themes, but different characters,” he said.
IMPLACABLES: BORN IN FRANCE, DEVELOPED IN ENGLAND AND FILMED IN MEXICO
Ran Telem’s keynote also served to learn about the current status of Implacables, a series announced in May 2019 as a result of an agreement between The Mediapro Studio and Sony Pictures Television Latin America.
According to him, the project is in its final stages of writing and about to begin filming. “It will be produced shortly in Mexico,” he said.
And Implacables is a good example of The Mediapro Studio’s way of working, which creates and develops international stories that can then be produced in any country.
The story of Implacables arose as a result of a news published in France. Its development took place in England and its filming will be in Mexico.
“It’s a very interesting story. One day I was looking for a new story and I saw an incredible one about a serial rapist trapped in the north of France after 30 years. That intrigued me a lot. Here’s a guy who’s been raping over the years and there must have been a lot of cops trying to catch him. So we started telling the story from the point of view of the detectives. A group of detectives of different ages, generations, of different perceptions of life, of what police work is, of women, etc.”, he recalled.
“We did that story in England and it seemed easier for us to find the detective characters based on British TV. We developed the project, we pitched it and Sony liked it the most and wanted to develop the project in Mexico,“ he added.
Another good example is Submarine, a co-production with Globo that emerged internally at The Mediapro Studio and will be a Brazilian series spoken in English.
“Submarine is a great project. It is developing, writing the first episodes. It is going to be a very interesting project. It will be spoken in English, although it will be a Brazilian project,” he concluded.
