The Centrepiece interview: Mike Goodridge, Leontine Petit, Carole Scotta talk Fremantle‑backed alliance The Creatives

Industry curiosity was piqued last November at the announcement of The Creatives, a group of international independent production companies banding together in a loose three-year alliance with Fremantle to develop high-end drama series projects.

In a landscape that has been reshaped by US streaming giants, the pandemic and shifting audience habits, being an independent producer has become an increasingly rough business; The Creatives felt like a riposte to these shifts but also a recognition that perhaps collective strength is the way forward.

The companies and producers involved generate headlines on their own, let alone as a group banner: from France, Haut et Court and Unité; from the Netherlands, Lemming Film; Germany’s Razor Film; Israel’s Spiro Films; Norway’s Maipo Film; Belgium’s Versus Production; Masha from the US; and Mike Goodridge’s Good Chaos from the UK. Three months after launch, the original nine were joined by German outfit Komplizen Film.

Nine months in, and three of the new venture’s linchpins — Goodridge, Haut et Court co-founder Carole Scotta and Lemming Film’s CEO/producer Leontine Petit — sat down with Screen International for their first joint interview, to explain how The Creatives came into being, describe what its core mission is and clear up some early misapprehensions. For one thing, despite film being included in most stories about them, the deal with Fremantle is for drama series only — at least for now; for another, as Goodridge puts it, “Some people think it’s a first-look deal, but it’s absolutely not a first-look deal.”

Carving out time for The Creatives has become a priority for all three, but they also remain incredibly busy in their day jobs. Goodridge came out of Cannes with the Palme d’Or winner — Ruben Östlund’s Triangle Of Sadness, on which he was co-producer — and is mid-shoot in the UK on Jessica Hausner’s psychological drama Club Zero starring Mia Wasikowska. Petit recently returned to Amsterdam from the Indian Ocean island of Reunion where she has been shooting Sweet Dreams, the second feature of Dutch-­Bosnian filmmaker Ena Sendijarevic who won Sarajevo Film Festival’s top prize in 2019 with her debut Take Me Somewhere Nice. And Scotta dials into the call from Berlin, where she is in production on Apple TV+ series Constellation starring Noomi Rapace.

Can you fill us in on the origin story behind The Creatives? How did it first come together and, Carole, did you lead on this?

Carole Scotta: We started it by looking at the market. We [Haut et Court] have a network of producers we have worked with and it was really saying, “How do we continue in this growing market, and with the arrival of streamers?” We all value our independence but we know that we are very small compared to bigger companies who have been these last few years buying [independent production] companies. Studio­canal started it, Federation, Newen, just to name a few. And what can we find to be a bit stronger but still keep our businesses independent. So we decided we should try to create a group of producers who all know each other, who have been working with each other and try to be stronger in our negotiations with funds, with sales agents, and even with talent.

Then we went into financial discussions and we ended up making a deal with Fremantle. It’s unique in that it’s not binding in terms of a stake in the companies or anything, it’s not a first-look deal. We only have to agree on a certain number of projects that we submit to them and that they will finance. It reflects the philosophy of the group: we didn’t want to be tied with one partner that we do all our projects with; it’s important to keep the freedom to [work with] different partners on different projects. And this deal is only for series, it’s not for feature films.

In the initial story it was reported that the deal would also cover film. How did the Fremantle partnership come about?

Mike Goodridge: We talked to a lot of companies. We were determined that it not be an exclusive or first-look deal because we want to maintain a level of freedom. And several of our members have worked with Fremantle before, we all know the group that’s run by Christian Vesper [Fremantle’s president of global drama]. We reached an accord with them that we were all quite happy with. We submit projects to them that we choose and they are required to finance development, a minimum of six from the group per year. It could be more but it’s a minimum of six.

November marks one year. Are the first six projects in the Fremantle pipeline?

Scotta: I don’t know if it’s six yet. We have a big meeting at the end of September, before the [one-year] deadline, to know where we are. Because we also — and this is something very valuable to the group — meet two or three times a year. We already had two meetings, which are weekend meetings where we spend three days together, just the producers, exchanging about what we want to do next, what are our projects, what does the marketplace look like.

Where do these meetings take place?

Scotta: At the end of September we’ll be in Amsterdam thanks to Leontine and Lemming.

Leontine Petit: Before that, we were in France thanks to Carole and in Germany thanks to Razor. The weekend itself is very inspiring because it’s not only sharing information, it’s sharing thoughts about projects, talents, what else we can do… One of the things that came out of this was to do this application for the European Commission, for which we got money for this new writers’ initiative called The Creative Connection. It’s a three-part workshop that we’ll do over one year.

Scotta: Three sessions that are five days long so it’s quite intense. We will have a presentation in Venice with the European Commission which is going to happen on Sunday [September 4] at the Excelsior.

Petit: And then in September or October we will ask writers to apply and we will accept 12. They are supposed to be mainly experienced, although we will have some who are less experienced. The programme will be focused on high-end drama series.

Going back to your original conception, the producers who make up The Creatives are film-focused although many of you have done TV as well. But why is there no film component to the arrangement with Fremantle which, as a company, has ramped up its own film production footprint in recent years?

Goodridge: We’ve had many discussions about the film side. Film is a different beast, though. All of us make lots of different types of films, some under €1m, some over €10m, so it’s very difficult to create a similar kind of deal for film. And, of course, we’re all in different countries and have access to different financing structures and different public funds. It’s still a work in progress about how our film activities move forward but we’re talking about it all the time.

Scotta: Interestingly, Fremantle has created a new venture into financing high-end films, so we might be talking to them about that. We also tend to think — I don’t know if everybody agrees with this — that at some point film might be the new TV.

Petit: I think also our approach in drama series is quite feature film-like. So, for example, the way we could finance them, some could be more like a co-production so that we keep more rights; others could be straight to a streamer. We are all still passionate about feature films but we didn’t feel the need [to include film] because the biggest issue for us was the amount of development money you need for drama series. Because a lot of the talent is in demand, there’s a need to pay higher prices. And in most of our countries, except for Israel and maybe also the UK, there’s a lot of development money available for feature films.

With this deal, you must be looking to develop international drama series at the premium end of the market. Have you had budget discussions yet with Fremantle?

Goodridge: Not really because we’re in development stage at the moment. We’ve created some interesting templates for our deals with Fremantle, but who knows what the budgets will be.

In terms of those templates, Mike, are you referring to the retention of IP?

Goodridge: It’s just deal terms which we think are favourable in the current marketplace. We spent a lot of negotiation time on this and we’re happy with where we’ve landed.

Petit: Of course we are in favour of keeping at least part of the rights. We’re not thinking the model in which you are only a service producer is the best model. In some cases, that could be a model — it’s not that we don’t want to [do that]. But in general, our members are used to keeping part of the rights or a lot of rights. And it’s not only about rights in the long term, it’s also about creative freedom and creative control.

Are you all bringing new original projects to the table to pitch to Fremantle, or are you also pitching existing projects on your slates?

Scotta: I think we all want to bring our best projects to the table. That’s in our interests, and that’s also in Fremantle’s interest. It took some time to convince them that we’re actually going to share our best projects, because we hope it’s a long-term relationship. We want it to last and, of course, the very local projects that don’t really need international financing are maybe not for them. So we choose the most ambitious international projects [to pitch to] them. The project that we [Haut et Court] have with them is very international, with a very strong writer.

How does it work as a group in terms of which projects are pitched to Fremantle? Is there a vote to decide?

Goodridge: We keep each other informed. If we’re going to pitch to Fremantle, everybody knows about what we’re going to pitch. It’s unusual because we’re not competitive, strangely, in this whole thing. We’re working together, we all want everybody to succeed.

Scotta: What you’re saying is very important, Mike — there is this trust among us where, when are we going to pitch the projects, there is no selection process within the group. It’s something we share with each other on a very informal basis, but everybody chooses to pitch their own projects to Fremantle.

Petit: I believe in the quality and taste and experience of the other members. So it’s not that we feel we have to, between quotes, “judge” the other projects before they go to Fremantle, it’s more that we know we all have something in common: this feature-film background and this ambition of making quality that lasts. Although we’re all very different, coming from different countries, it’s this common identity — we like each other’s work.

Scotta: In our case, we created the group first, and then we went to Fremantle. The fact we chose each other for our human and professional talents and relationships makes it very strong. We can do anything from that very strong basis [because] it’s based on personal relationships and trust. We don’t need to have processes between ourselves, non-­disclosure agreements or whatever.

In the circumstance where one of these projects gets made, will all members of the group benefit from whatever financial terms are agreed with Fremantle? Will the collective spirit of The Creatives extend to revenue sharing?

Scotta: This is the next step and something we are now discussing. The projects that are being pitched and developed are still belonging to the [individual] company, but now we are exploring the possibility of having the group benefit from it in one way or another. That’s the topic of our next session. We may end up having a common company and see how it works. But it’s not the case yet.

Are you able to share anything at this stage about the projects that Fremantle has given the greenlight to, or writers that you’re working with?

Petit: I can’t at the moment but hopefully soon, maybe in four weeks’ time.

Scotta: I can say that most of the companies have pitched already. We are going to be very precise about it in a few weeks but we [Haut et Court] have a development deal that is a result of this. I think Leontine as well, Mike, Unité… I’m not sure if it’s everybody yet but we still have a few weeks to go.

Who are you pitching to at Fremantle? Is it Christian Vesper?

Goodridge: It’s Christian’s team — global drama. He’s very engaged. We had physical meetings with him in Paris; he’s going to be in Venice and some of us will be there as well. We try also to work around the festivals or the markets where we know that most of us are attending, for instance we met in Lille during Series Mania.

Creative freedom was one of the points highlighted in your original press release. Does Fremantle have an appetite for riskier projects? Is there a sweet spot in terms of the projects they’ve greenlit so far?

Scotta: It’s quite eclectic I would say. If you look at their line-up, they have very different projects. I think they will do the same with us.

Petit: Of the international projects I pitched, they liked both of them.

Scotta: And they have to feed all the streamers, all the networks, they have to have projects for every appetite. They need diversity and what they like in our group is that we are diverse. It’s in their interest to have very diversified projects [from us].

Is there discussion about expanding the number of companies? People must be knocking at your door to join.

Scotta: Yeah, it’s true. We are tempted, because there are other companies we love and would like to have in the group but our concern would be to be too many. When you have these weekends or these weekly meetings, the number would at some point be too large. So at this moment we decided that we’ll stick to where we are, in order to make sure it works well.

Are you feeling the benefits of collective power?

Scotta: The last weekend we had in Brittany, it was very hard to [get there], it took a long time [for everyone] to arrive. We were all exhausted. And then we spent two days meeting all the time and we were so inspired. It’s such an opportunity to sit down and talk and exchange; it really is this idea of collective intelligence, which is very inspiring. We’re all living in our little bubble, in our offices and our businesses, and it’s unique to spend this time thinking out of the box and exchanging. I can tell you that for hours, nobody was looking at their phones.

Goodridge: It sort of gets better and better. The relationships get stronger and stronger.

You mentioned earlier about having a joint company to deal with revenue sharing. What about formalising the partnership even further? Can you see yourselves merging to create a European production powerhouse?

Goodridge: I think there’s incredible potential to create creatives companies going forward. We’ve had many discussions about what that would look like. Could there be a film sales company attached to it? Could there be a management company attached to it? We’ve had all sorts of conversations about what the benefits could be from building this collective. It’s also about what finance could we raise from a group of 10 busy companies like this. It’s really powerful if you think about it. But as Carole says, we’re not rushing into anything.

Scotta: It took us almost two years just to do the deal with Fremantle because we wanted to talk to many suspects, the usual suspects. The Creative Connection is already an example of what we can achieve: we put all our energy into the application and it worked, I think there were only two groups that were selected [to receive funding]. So there are many other activities we could create. But again, we are all very busy and we don’t want to go too fast. It’s a good balance so far, and what we already achieved is great.

Goodridge: [The Creative Connection] will be about writers working with creative producers. That’s why we’re called The Creatives. I think too often in this new world of platforms, producers are looked at as people who just deliver the project, or get it made, whereas if you look at the background of Haut et Court or Lemming or Versus, these companies have been around for decades and their creative legacy is incredible. And of course, a lot of the talent comes from film. A lot of the directors and writers are discovered in these films, and we want to be able to give them a home that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to sign their lives away to a distribution entity or a platform.

It’s common for new European talent to be snapped up and spirited away to direct a series or film for a US platform. Nice paydays, but is it the right move in terms of building a long-term career?

Petit: In some of the countries it’s going even further that these talents don’t even do one TV series but they just basically are for periods of time owned by either distribution companies or streamers and they cannot make anything for anybody else. I’m wondering whether they will be happy in the end because it’s a little bit like the old studio system, where people were hired as writers and were just sitting in a room. For some writers, this might be nice for a while because they’re very frustrated by the fact they always have to fight for certain projects or to get the right paycheque. But for others, especially the big ones, I’m surprised they’re taking these deals because they could get this kind of money anywhere. But it’s also a process, you know, it will finish one day.

Do you all still feel optimistic the festival arthouse space has a long-term future, that these kinds of films can survive and thrive?

Goodridge: Having just come back from Sarajevo, the energy there was incredible. It’s like people were desperate to get back. It was packed. Locarno and Karlovy Vary were the same, I think, and Cannes was insane. So there’s a real appetite to get back into that world. I just hope there’s a marketplace for these films.

Scotta: That’s the question. The market is recovering, progressively. In France we’ve had a summer which is not that bad. We had the chance to release [Dominik Moll’s] La Nuit Du 12 [The Night Of The 12th], which was in Cannes and it is doing really well, we will end up at half a million admissions. So yes, I’m still optimistic and there are stories that you cannot tell in a long-form series, there are stories that need to be told in a shorter form, like a feature film, and that need to be shared within a theatre.

There are high hopes for Triangle Of Sadness.

Goodridge I think Triangle is a real hope because it’s a sort of event arthouse film. It’s quite commercial, it’s comedic, it’s a real crowdpleaser. I think the hope is that it will help stimulate that market everywhere.

• Screen digital edition: August-September 2022