In faraway places like Europe, Australia and Israel, Hollywood talent agents are tapping the imaginations of screenwriters and producers, hoping to unearth some Michael magic or Betty brilliance.
No longer confined to Hollywood, or even to sister city London, where many reality franchises have been born, the search for the next Michael Scott and Betty Suarez is on, now that "The Office" and "Ugly Betty" have proved that it is possible to successfully adapt a foreign scripted series for a big U.S. audience.
"I'm sure in London, people are wondering who all these Armani-clad agents are descending on the city, turning over rocks, looking for new formats," joked Morgan Wandell, senior vice president of drama development at ABC Studios. The studio arm of the ABC network is producing two pilots derived from British series and one from New Zealand as contenders for next fall's lineups on ABC and CBS. "There is more interest in finding this kind of material because it is one more arrow in our development quivers that help us find the next big thing."
This pilot season there are more scripted foreign formats being developed than in years past, even though the writers strike cut the typical pilot orders by about half. Of the 50 pilots competing for a time slot at ABC, CBS and Fox, 10 are based on foreign series -- eight from Britain, one from Israel and one from New Zealand.
Additionally, NBC recently announced 12 new series as part of its lineup for the next TV season, including two foreign adaptations. NBC's version of Australia's longest-running comedy, "Kath & Kim," about a dysfunctional mother and daughter, starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, will premiere in the fall. "The Listener," a Canadian drama about a paramedic who can read people's minds, is scheduled to premiere next summer.
By comparison, last pilot season, eight of 112 pilots at the five broadcast networks were based on foreign series. Only two of the eight pilots with foreign roots last year -- CBS' "Viva Laughlin" and the CW's "Life Is Wild" -- made it on the air and neither survived. Fox's game show hit "The Moment of Truth," NBC's summer reality show "Baby Borrowers" and CBS' summer drama "Flashpoint" also were born overseas.
It's a creative exchange
Does this signal that the Hollywood idea well is running dry, particularly after a disappointing fall in which no new TV series broke out?
Absolutely not, said Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios. "It's that we're opening our doors to the entire world and we're not just looking to one place for those ideas. I wanted to bring an entrepreneurial energy to our broadcast channel and work with foreign partners because the foreign marketplace is incredibly rich right now, and if we can come up with ideas that sell globally from the beginning, like 'Heroes,' it benefits how you finance them. These partnerships also make sense because our foreign partners will put money into a show, which gives us big, big production value."
The creative exchange, in fact, works both ways and is hard evidence of a shrinking global entertainment world. Many of the most popular shows in America are also hits around the world -- "CSI: Miami," "Lost" and "Heroes," among them. But in most cases the shows air intact, with characters like Det. Horatio Caine (David Caruso) of "CSI: Miami" being dubbed in Portuguese for the Brazilian audience, for example.
"Desperate Housewives" is another story. Several versions of the ABC soap have been remade in Latin America and on Univision, using creator Marc Cherry's scripts, but fine-tuning the ladies for cultural relevance. Inspiration for a TV show can come from almost anywhere -- existing shows in another country (HBO's recent "In Treatment" was an almost literal remake of its Israeli original), a book (the CW's "Gossip Girl") or movies (Fox's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles").
"You never know where the zeitgeist comes from," said Rick Rosen, an Endeavor Agency partner. "The networks are more receptive to it because they are struggling to find something that is the next breakout hit."
Like all shows fighting to exist and survive, foreign series purchased for this market go through the same development process as American programs. Often they are altered and adapted considerably.
"In reality and game shows, the formats tend to be exact," Silverman said. "But in scripted series, they require adaptation for a specific market. It's a cocktail of perfect proportions and any one ingredient -- the writing, the directing or the casting -- can throw the whole thing off."
If there is a poster child for the global movement in TV, it's Silverman, who before he joined NBC last year had been welcoming ideas from abroad for the last decade as a William Morris agent and later as owner of his production company, Reveille. (Silverman sold Reveille in February).
