After a rocky road following HBO Max’s exit from CEE, Gabor Krigler of Hungary’s Joyrider is pivoting to embrace English-language coproductions.

Gabor Krigler

When Gabor Krigler was appointed creative executive at HBO Europe in 2010, he was given a front-row seat to witness the explosion of interest in local content from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Within five years, HBO Europe had a major presence across the region, running 11 channels and two VoD services in 15 countries, including Poland and the Czech Republic. The pay TV channel operated production bases in those two countries as well as Hungary and Romania.

Content produced during that time included remakes of the Israeli drama In Treatment in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary; Czech biographical drama miniseries Burning Bush; Polish action thriller Wataha; and a Czech version of Israeli format Shall We Kiss?.

Back then, HBO Europe was seen as a pioneering presence in CEE as it became a leading commissioner of scripted TV. From his office in Budapest, Krigler produced projects such as Hungarian drama Aranyélet (aka Golden Life), based on Finnish format Easy Living, which ran for three seasons from 2015.

“HBO was a real pioneer of non-English-language local content, even before the rise of Netflix,” says Krigler. “From very early on when I joined their ranks, I was told to be provocative, do my own stuff and not care what anyone else thinks. For better or worse, I still carry that quality with me.”

Krigler departed HBO in 2019 to launch his own company, Joyrider. Based in Budapest, the indie prodco’s mission statement was to develop and invest in drama projects from established writers across Europe alongside the development of in-house projects.

Joyrider agreed a non-exclusive development deal with HBO Europe and also established a working relationship with London- and LA-based international drama accelerator MediaXchange.

The outfit’s first project was Frust, a comic thriller produced with Belgrade-based Firefly Productions and directed by Oscar winner Danis Tanović, for Serbia’s Telekom Srbija.

However, the good times were not to last. Rumours started to emerge that HBO Max would halt the development of original content in most of Europe following the merger of Discovery and Warner Bros in April of 2022. Sure enough, by August of the same year, Warner Bros Discovery made 29 lay-offs at HBO Max Europe, including commissioning, programming and acquisitions executives.

It was devastating news for Krigler and other producers in CEE, who had become somewhat reliant on HBO as a primary commissioner and coproduction partner for premium original projects with international ambition.

Krigler has produced series including Hungarian drama Aranyélet

“From one day to the next, HBO just obliterated all these original programming departments,” Krigler says. “They even took down shows from CEE on its service. It was a huge blow to us producers and creatives in these regions. Specifically, Hungary is a notoriously difficult market, so when HBO withdrew, that left us with just one independent entity, free-to-air channel: RTL.

“RTL launched a streaming service and, much to their credit, they did try to finance some premium high-end content. They promised they would produce up to 10 scripted shows a year, but that was cut down to two or three shows and it seems those projects weren’t successful. They’ve struggled to compete with bigger platforms such as Netflix and Disney+, so now RTL are mostly back to commissioning commercial, middle-of-the-road content.”

Netflix localised its service in Poland in 2016, with the streamer’s content subsequently rolled out to subscribers in Romania, Hungary, Croatia and Ukraine. In 2022, Netflix opened an office in Warsaw, from which executives oversaw the production of dozens of original local series such as The Woods, Sexify and Rojst ‘97.

However, while the Polish market is booming, the same could not be said for the rest of CEE, which has struggled to attract anywhere near the same levels of streamer investment.
That situation deteriorated further still, according to Krigler, when the big VoD services began to row back on local production around the world, as the ‘peak TV’ era came to a shuddering halt.

“When the streamer bubble burst, it was very disappointing,” says Krigler. “Netflix had been driving the trend for local non-English-language content, which was obviously amazing for producers from CEE. But after the streamers withdrew, it became super difficult to sell anything abroad that doesn’t fit into neat genre boxes. All the big streamers are concentrating on Poland, but elsewhere in CEE it’s now mostly small countries with dwindling markets.

“I’d say that Romania and Hungary are in the most difficult situation. Serbia is also winding down a bit. It’s mostly doom and gloom.”

With commissions at an all-time low during an industry correction, Krigler says Joyrider has been forced to temporarily park at least 10 projects it had been developing. Refusing to throw in the towel, Krigler has since recalibrated his content strategy to point Joyrider in a different direction.

“Our earlier strategy of trying to set up local projects for the international market was challenging on so many levels,” he says. “So we’ve pivoted into dealing with English-language projects. There’s an opportunity for us to work with international companies and meaningfully contribute to their productions filmed here in CEE, not just as service providers, but on a creative level.

Comedic thriller Frust was Joyrider’s first project

“Right now, Joyrider has boarded three projects as coproduction partners. We can provide local authenticity, ensure the content retains a CEE flavour and provide some of the creative talent as well. That kind of strategy is an exciting new perspective that we did not necessarily consider earlier. We’ve evolved into it because of all the hardship we’ve experienced here in Hungary.”

One copro project Joyrider is actively working on is Bella & the Beast, a cosy crime drama set in Budapest based on an idea by UK screenwriter Jake Riddell (Grantchester, The Bill, Death in Paradise). The procedural drama is being pitched as a potential UK and Central and Eastern European coproduction. Krigler is partnering with Kateryna Vyshnevska, the UK-based independent producer and former head of development and coproductions at Ukrainian prodco Film.UA (Hide & Seek, Those Who Stayed).

Among those challenges is the cultural complexity associated with negotiating intra-CEE coproduction partnerships in a region riven with centuries-old political division.

Another frustration is attempting to develop edgy content in a country ruled by right-wing prime minister Viktor Orbán. “Political factors are affecting the content industry here,” says Krigler. “There’s a certain ideology surrounding Orbán’s government, which basically controls Hungary’s media. A lot of the content produced here is mostly a form of propaganda.

“To give an example of the difficulty with copros, we had a Polish-Hungarian project up and running which had pre-production funding attached and looked like a sure thing. Then, because of the war in Ukraine, relationships between Hungary and Poland started to sour, which killed the project off. We’re hoping to bring it back to life at some point, but that’s a pretty clear case of politics getting in the way of an otherwise natural copro arrangement.”

He adds: “More generally speaking, it’s difficult to think of CEE as one single market when there are so many different languages and cultures.”

Despite the many obstacles currently hampering the production industry in Hungary and its neighbouring countries, Krigler remains optimistic for the long-term future. In addition to running Joyrider, he’s head of studies at the Midpoint Institute in Prague, as well as serving as a guest tutor at various drama series workshops. Often acting as a mentor to emerging writing talent, Krigler feels CEE creatives speak with a unique voice that deserves to be heard around the world.

“At Midpoint, I’m currently working with a team of Polish creatives and they’re amazing,” he says. “There’s also some great content coming out of countries like Serbia and Croatia. In CEE countries, there is a nice pool of stories and IP to tap into, whether that’s real-life historical subjects or totally invented mythology.

“Because of the history, background and cultural uniqueness of CEE territories, writers from this region see the world in a different way to Hollywood or writers from the West. For many years now, people have predicted that the next big thing is going to be CEE. We’re not there yet, but in the next couple of years there’s going to be some potentially massive crossover hits that will work very well internationally.”

Looking ahead, Krigler outlines the changes that need to be implemented to bring the good times back to CEE. “We need the streamers to show more interest in our admittedly smaller markets and take risks once again, rather than trying to second-guess what Wall Street wants them to do,” he says.

“In Hungary, we need our government to be more open-minded about content that reflects our culture and enhances our reputation overseas. Personally speaking, I never give up. At Joyrider we’ll continue to build for the future and hope for calmer times.”