James Durie and Richard Life of Cineflix Rights break down their scripted and unscripted distribution strategy ahead of Mipcom, as they showcase their new premium drama, YA and high-volume factual.
UK-based distributor Cineflix Rights is arriving at Mipcom celebrating its 20th anniversary on the back of a strong year – in which it has expanded its investment in scripted and continued to extend the international footprint of its flagship unscripted brands.
On the scripted side, the company is doubling down on drama with high-profile talent attached, including the Paramount+ Australia original Last King of The Cross (10×60’, Helium Pictures), a rags-to-riches gangster story following an immigrant with no education and no prospects who ascends to become one of Australia’s most infamous nightclub moguls.
Set in Sydney and based on true events, the show stars Tim Roth (The Hateful Eight, Lie to Me, Sundown) and Lincoln Younes (Grand Hotel, Tangle, Barons).
There’s also feature film Sugar, produced by Connect 3 Media and Sepia Films for Prime Video (Canada, Australia, New Zealand), about two young Canadian influencers who unwittingly become entangled in a deadly drug smuggling operation while traveling on a cruise ship bound for Australia.
Both projects were greenlit locally by global streamers – a commissioning structure that has become increasingly prevalent as the business models employed by SVoD services evolve.
“Streamers are now commissioning a lot more content, and not always for worldwide,” says James Durie, head of scripted at Cineflix Rights, which is part of Montreal-headquartered Cineflix Media. “As they try to localise their content, there are opportunities for distributors to work with them to get shows greenlit.”
It is also a trend that is becoming apparent on the factual side, says Richard Life, head of acquisitions at Cineflix Rights. “They recognise that it’s a mixed economy for them and, frankly, that their budgets go further if they can spread out that risk and not have a landgrab on rights,” he says.
“Right now, there’s an opportunity for us as distributors to partner with some of these big companies that, perhaps in the past, have been a little less flexible on rights.”
Also on the scripted slate is the supernatural dramedy Reginald the Vampire (10×60’), produced by Great Pacific Media, Modern Story, December Films and Cineflix Studios for Syfy in the US.
The series sends up traditional vampire tropes and follows an unlikely hero (played by Spider-Man’s Jacob Batalon) who crashes headlong into a world populated by beautiful, fit and vain vampires.
While Sugar and Reginald the Vampire are very different projects, both have a young-adult (YA) skew to them, says Durie. “We heard the call from our buyers for more YA content. I’ve sat in hundreds of meetings in which the question at the end is, ‘what are you looking for?’ and YA is at the forefront of that,” he says.
Cineflix Rights’ slate includes several dramas that are procedural in nature, including season two of cozy crime series Whitstable Pearl (12×60’, Buccaneer Media) for AMC Networks’ Acorn TV in the UK.
Of late, there has been a lot of industry chatter about the ‘return’ of the procedural, especially in light of the rise of ad-supported streaming. For Durie, however, procedurals have always been among the best-selling properties in distributors’ catalogues.
“The death of the procedural was overhyped and premature – I don’t think the genre ever went away. It was always super strong in Europe, with the US networks and across pay TV in the UK,” he says.
“What maybe happened is that CSI came down from its lofty heights and so everyone thought the procedural was dead. But they’re still a huge element of every single channel and platform’s strategy, and viewers love them and still buy into the characters and worlds. We will have multiple procedurals on our slate for the foreseeable future.”
Also on the scripted slate are seasons one and two (20×60’) of Israeli police corruption drama Manayek. Produced by Yoav Gross Productions for Kan 11, the show tells the story of an investigator who stumbles upon a police corruption case where the prime suspect is his best friend.
Cineflix Rights is also selling the first two seasons of Irvine Welsh’s Crime (12×60’), produced by Buccaneer and Off Grid Film & TV for ITVX/BritBox in the UK. The series, which is adapted from the Scottish author’s best-selling novel of the same name, follows detective inspector Ray Lennox (played by Dougray Scott, who has been nominated for this year’s International Emmy Best Performance Award for his role) as he navigates his own struggles while taking on criminal investigations.
On the unscripted side, Life describes the distributor’s offering this year as a “a combination of really strong volume and returning brands mixed with brand new series.”
Holiday Homes in the Sun (80×60’, Raise the Roof Productions and Motion Content Group for Channel 5, UK) — which sees hosts Amanda Lamb, J.B. Gill and DJ Sam Pinkham competing to find their favourite European holiday rental — is an example of the opportunity Cineflix Rights sees in acquiring worldwide rights for high-volume factual series.
The distributor is also selling two seasons of The Yorkshire Auction House (40×60’, STV Productions for Discovery+, UK), which see Angus Ashworth travel the UK clearing homes of their clutter and then selling the forgotten treasures he finds along the way.
Life says selling factual shows with fast-growing episode counts is a “huge opportunity for us in the market, where we see buyers looking for volume to fill whole quarters of a schedule. And not only that, with the rapid rise of FAST and AVoD, volume is the name of the game there too.”
It should be noted that Cineflix Rights is expanding its business in the FAST space, recently hiring Mike Gould in the newly created position of senior VP of digital. Part of Gould’s remit is to shape and lead Cineflix Rights’ digital strategy and ultimately launch direct-to-consumer FAST channels later this year.
Shorter-order factual is also a key part of the sales strategy, with other titles including Cult Justice (8×60’, Law&Crime Productions for True Crime Network in the US), about false prophets who thought they were above the law; ocean adventure series Ghost Ships (4×60’, Arcadia Entertainment for Canada’s Bell Media); and Close Encounters Down Under (6×60’, Perpetual Entertainment), which reveals untold stories of UFO sightings, abductions and other paranormal events. The latter is produced for 7Mate (Australia), TVNZ (New Zealand) and A+E Networks (UK, Ireland, Poland and Romania).
Increasingly, Cineflix Rights is boarding scripted projects early in the development process. That is the case for several titles on this year’s Mipcom slate, such as Last King of The Cross. Durie says Cineflix worked with the producer to complete the financing and secure presales in order to get the show greenlit.
Another example is a TV adaptation of author Shankari Chandran’s Song of the Sun God, with Charithra Chandran as the lead, which Cineflix Rights boarded as a creative and financing partner after striking a deal with Glasgow-based producer Synchronicity Films and Sydney’s Dragonet Films.
Pre-selling scripted shows is an area of focus for Cineflix Rights, says Durie, adding that the company is working closely with London-based Buccaneer, an affiliated JV within the Cineflix Media portfolio, to pre-sell shows at a “much earlier stage.” This strategy has been used with The Doll Factory, which has been commissioned by Paramount+ in the UK.
That was also the case for Patrick Aryee’s Wild World (4×60’, Cineflix Productions and Curve Media for Sky Nature), which sees the British biologist and explorer travel the world to examine how nature’s delicate balance can be both disrupted and restored. The blue-chip wildlife series was pre-sold to Sky Nature in the UK, with Cineflix Rights launching sales to other international buyers at Mipcom.
Life says being able to facilitate presales is one of the company’s great strengths and gives it a leg up in the marketplace. “Some distributors don’t have the ability to pre-sell,” he says.
“It’s a very different process than selling a finished show. You need to think like a producer, and it’s not easy – persuading someone to commit to something before it’s made requires an enormous amount of confidence, and it’s a certain skillset that not every distributor has. We’ve proven in scripted and unscripted that we have that skillset in-house.”
This year marks the 20-year anniversary of Cineflix Rights, and its execs are keen to impress upon the industry that the elements that have made the company a fixture within the international distribution sector still stand – and that the best is yet to come.
“Amidst seemingly endless industry consolidation, we are proud to remain a fiercely independent production and distribution company,” says Durie. “It’s about ensuring we are of a scale that gives us leverage in the market, but which also allows us to maintain strong relationships with our producer clients who are vital to our success.”
“And while the shows, lines of business and market players might have changed down the years, the company’s core DNA is still to build franchises and brands that can work for buyers across the globe,” says Life.
“From day one, Cineflix Rights was always about returning brands and series, especially in the unscripted space, and now with the scripted space too, so we’re just carrying on the heritage of the company,” he adds.
James Durie, head of scripted at Cineflix Rights, and Sandra Piha, senior VP of sales for the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia, discuss the changing market and the distributor’s scripted and factual slates for Mipcom.
What are your thoughts on the state of the market right now?
DURIE: Clearly, events of the last six months, heightened by the US strikes, have put an element of uncertainty into the business, which we’re hoping we’ll see the end of quite soon. But there are always opportunities. I still think that for the right kinds of shows at the right price point in the market, there are still a lot of places to take them and find success.
How have the strikes and the downturn in the economy impacted the factual market?
PIHA: The strikes and the advertising recession have inevitably affected our business. There are fewer commissions, smaller budgets and more curated acquisitions from channels instead of the usual big volume deals. We’ve continued working with our producing partners to help get projects greenlit via different funding models. We’ve seen some strong development slates on which we can’t wait to work together with our partners – let’s hope things turn around soon. The good news is that broadcasters have remained committed to successful returning brands that perform well.
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A new vampire dramedy and returnable unscripted series are among the titles selected by Cineflix Rights’ James Durie, head of scripted, and Richard Life, head of acquisitions, for the company’s playlist on C21’s Digital Screenings in the lead-up to MipTV.
Montreal-headquartered media and production company Cineflix Media, which is behind shows such as drama Tehran on Apple TV+, was set up in 1998 by co-CEOs Glen Salzman and Katherine Buck. Cineflix Rights, the company’s UK-based distribution arm, now boasts a catalogue of more than 5,500 hours of programming across a wide range of genres.
James Durie, Cineflix Rights’ head of scripted, says the company’s focus on contemporary thrillers and young-adult content is paying off, as the genres are increasingly popular among broadcasters and streamers alike.
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Tim Mutimer, Cineflix Media’s CEO of Rights, has new product to show buyers this week but is also emphasising the importance of returning titles, as he talks us through his slate for the London Screenings.
Tim Mutimer, the UK-based CEO, Rights of international producer and distributor Cineflix Media, has a busy few days ahead of him but is relishing the return to face-to-face meetings and the normality of industry events.
“We love meeting people in person, and doing it in London will be great,” he says. “We have plenty of meetings this week for the London Screenings, we’ll have people at Series Mania and we’ll be going full steam ahead to MipTV, so it feels like we’re getting back to some kind of normality, which is fantastic.”
As far as the company’s new programme slate is concerned, Mutimer and the Cineflix Rights team will be giving buyers an early peek at a number of new titles this week. The firm is partnering with Aussie producer Mark Fennessy’s new prodco Helium on Last King of The Cross (10×60’), an Australian original from Paramount+ that Mutimer describes as “a truly authentic depiction of gangster life, set against the backdrop of one of the most iconic locations on the planet.”
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Chris Bonney, outgoing CEO at Cineflix Rights, discusses the key titles on the UK-based distributor’s new slate, its strong position in the market and opportunities for collaboration.
For Cineflix Rights CEO Chris Bonney, the company’s new content reflects its unique place in the business. “We love our position as a creatively-led independent distributor, where we can go after the content that matches our own independence: distinctive, creative and commercially appealing.”
Bonney joined Cineflix Media in 2012 to lead Cineflix Rights, the company’s sales and acquisitions arm. Under his watch, it has grown into the UK’s largest independent TV content distributor, selling a catalogue of over 5,000 hours of scripted and factual content to more than 500 broadcasters and streamers internationally.
Cineflix is keen on noisy content, says Bonney. “We’re looking for projects that allow us to generate a larger share of the market, by tapping into the creative strength of the project. We’re medium-sized, proud of our independence and looking for programming that keeps us top of people’s minds.”
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UK distributor Cineflix Rights has a wide-ranging slate of content for Spring/Summer 2021. Head of scripted James Durie and head of acquisitions Richard Life talk us through the playlist and discuss how it reflects the needs of a buoyant market.
As the world slowly begins to return to normal, the audience’s appetite for new content is not going away. One trend that James Durie, head of scripted at Cineflix Rights, sees continuing is the popularity of crime shows.
“Crime is a huge part of any schedule – whether it’s linear broadcasters or SVOD platforms. The appetite for both sophisticated English-language and international crime shows and big North American procedurals is still massive,” he says.
Cineflix Rights’ new scripted slate consists of five shows, four of which are crime series. Despite being aware of the genre’s popularity, Durie insists this is a coincidence. What his company has been looking for is variety within the crime genre, something that he says buyers are also after.
“For scripted, variety can come from the source location and the territory the show is produced in. We are used to production territories defining sub-genres, like UK cozy crime and Scandi Noir, but you can now add many more to that list. People are consuming more and more content and it’s inevitable that buyers are looking wider to fulfill that brief,” says Durie.
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Cineflix Rights head of acquisitions Richard Life, head of scripted James Durie and senior members of the global sales team reveal the UK-based distributor’s London Screenings playlist and discuss global trends impacting their 2021 slate.
As the focus of international buyers shifts to the UK for February and the first two weeks of March, London-based Cineflix Rights, the UK’s largest independent TV content distributor, has launched a new web platform. The Cineflix Content Fest has been created to showcase the distributor’s premium factual and scripted programming.
“Our engaging, interactive online experience will preview new factual and scripted content to global buyers in a creative way, allowing them to explore our new shows in their own time,” says Cineflix Rights head of acquisitions Richard Life. “We’re adapting to the new normal of bringing our slate to buyers via digital means.”
“We now have great experience in delivering digital screenings to the market, as we did at the start of the first lockdown with the e-premiere of The Minister [8×60’],” adds head of scripted James Durie. “Alongside our returning series, we will be introducing two new scripted shows at the London Screenings.”
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James Durie and Richard Life of Cineflix Rights showcase the UK-based distributor’s Content London playlist, discussing its recent scripted focus and opportunities for collaboration across a diverse slate.
London-based Cineflix Rights, the UK’s largest independent TV content distributor, provides premium scripted and factual programming to more than 500 broadcasters and platforms globally.
For head of acquisitions Richard Life, Cineflix’s recent move into the scripted space is part of its ongoing evolution. “Traditionally, we’ve mainly focused on unscripted, which the business was built on. But in recent years, through our own productions with Cineflix Studios, third-party acquisition activity, and our joint venture Buccaneer Media, scripted has now become very important. James Durie, who joined us to head up scripted, is a big part of that,” he says.
“We obviously realised the benefits of being across both scripted and unscripted. And with a proven track record in factual, we wanted to rival that in drama. We’ve had some great successes over the last two to three years, and are really looking to build on that,” adds Durie, pointing to the company’s signature scripted project.
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As the largest independent distributor in the UK, Cineflix Rights blends global scale with a boutique mindset and has a slate of programming on C21’s Digital Screenings to match.
Among international distributors, Cineflix Rights stands out as an independent company able to take advantage of parent Cineflix Media’s global scale while retaining an ability to be agile and nimble in negotiations with producers and buyers.
It’s a position CEO Chris Bonney calls the “sweet spot,” with the business also standing on a creative front foot that has helped it build a geographically- and genre-diverse slate that boasts scripted series such as Iceland’s The Minister, Israel’s Tehran and Russia’s An Ordinary Woman alongside factual series that take viewers to all corners of the globe.
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