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Fox Entertainment Head on Staying Lean As Big Companies Cut: “Part of Our Sales Pitch”

Logo textMedia conglomerates have engaged in a wave of un-renewals and other cutbacks as economic headwinds and the realities of going on a streaming bender have hit home.

That hasn’t been the case, however, at Fox, which after separating from its former in-house studio, 20th Television, in the 2018 Disney deal has maintained a purposefully smaller profile. Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn even sees opportunity to contrast his operation, both at the network and in-house Fox Entertainment Studios, with that of larger rivals.

“That is part of our sales pitch,” Thorn told The Hollywood Reporter. “Because we’re not high volume, we try to offer the best process possible that’s not bogged down by layers, that’s not bogged down by extensive notes, where each project, whether they go forward or not, feels like they’re prioritized. And I think what we’ve been seeing in these companies that have a huge ecosystem, it’s just not possible for everyone to be the favorite child. Because of that, that presents opportunities for us to reach out and say, you know, come be a primary partner for us.”

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Thorn spoke with THR about his hopes for the fledgling studio, how he’s approaching development — including a potential remake of 1970s show Starsky & Hutch — and the network’s preparations for potential labor strikes later in the year. He also touched on the futures of shows Fox doesn’t own, including the 911 franchise and its animated flaghsip The Simpsons.

Fox Entertainment Studios is growing some, so I’m curious what that means in terms of the way you’re approaching development and the ongoing efforts to own more of your own programming.

We are deliberately and slowly ramping up our in-house creation across Fox Entertainment Studios, including [animation studio] Bento Box. And so you see this week [the premiere of] Animal Control, our first 100 percent Fox-owned comedy, and that exemplifies this kind of big-picture strategy. We’ve been making a handful of direct deals with writers and producers that we see great creative alignment with. We’re a voice-driven company. And we’ve been really selectively making deals with some top-notch talent. We announced Marc Cherry, Rodney Rothman on the animated side. There’s a handful of really strong voices. And that’s really exciting. We just extended a deal with Malcolm Spellman and Nichelle Tramble’s company, The 51. So finding like-minded voices is a big part of our strategy. And to do that, we need a really nimble and lean in-house studio to help us achieve these goals.

Fox has been on a year-round development cycle for a couple of years, and everyone else seems to be kind of getting on that train now as well. But we haven’t seen any pilot or series deals from you for next season yet. I’m just curious where things stand with that and your approach to the year-round cycle.

Yeah, we really recalibrated and focused our approach to be built around a less is more buying strategy. Marc Cherry’s project, for example, Jenny Is a Weapon — he is working on the material right now and that is a very high-profile project for us. We have a handful of other in-house projects as well. And at the same time we see ourselves as great strategic partners for other studios. We have a great medical drama in development with Sony, with [executive producers] Barbie Kligman and Hank Steinberg based on a very successful Italian format called Doc. On the drama front we’re really focused. And again, we really want to be in business with the best creators who are looking to do something that’s original and unexpected and with mass appeal. On the animated side, as I mentioned, we made a deal with Rodney Rothman, and just a few months ago, we ordered a new series by the Malamut brothers. We’re still developing and ordering and I expect we’ll have some new series to talk about very soon.

Has the era of consolidation and vertical integration that we’re seeing now, with everybody kind of bringing things in house, affected the way you look at deals or licensing?

One of the reasons why we’re focused on building out our own internal capabilities is because much of the marketplace is focused on themselves. They’re really looking inward, as you said, at their own ecosystem. We wanted to make sure that while we continue to work with these partners, we had a robust pipeline that fulfilled our needs, and worked in bold and creative, but cost-effective models that work for us and for linear television today. I think that’s what we’ve seen in the marketplace, is there seems to be an opportunity for us to grow even further. Our goal is not to re-create what we had by any means. Our goal is just to be nimble and to have the best creators who really want to focus on this kind of mass appeal television. So far, it’s working. We’re really proud of the response that we’ve been getting, as we’ve been building out these writer deals.

As you’ve moved more to the script-to-series or straight-to-series model, what have you learned about how it’s different from the traditional pilot process?

What I found when we were making a high volume of pilots every year is that whether I was on the selling side or the buying side, you’d will into existence the project you wanted to go to series — whether it was flawed or not, warts and all. And if you really step back and look at the pilot process, it’s not a great predictor of success. A good pilot does not guarantee a successful series. What it does guarantee is a challenged financial model. We took a step back in concert with the partners that we’re working with, and decided that doing multiple scripts to series was a better way for them to express their series goals and for us to be able to understand the series vision. On Animal Control, we developed three scripts for the series and greenlit it off those three scripts. Those scripts allowed us to get Joel McHale, who was able to read them and say there’s a comedy vision here that I can’t wait to be a part of. It’s not a one size fits all — some projects have three scripts, some of our low-cost development, like Fantasy Island, Starsky & Hutch, if we go to series on that, it would be two scripts. And we really spend some time thinking about what do we need to get the green light? Where do our partners feel like they can deliver successfully to really showcase their vision? So far, so good. And I think, I think our partners so far really seem to like this process.

The one thing I’ll say that’s similar to the pilot process, is that when we go from one script to multiple scripts, we only do it with a few projects at a time. We take the same kind of approach, where if you get an order to do a mini writers’ room or to do backup material, it should still feel special, like you are on this path to getting a series. When we engage in that kind of backup material, it’s because we really, sincerely believe we can get the show on the air.

What if anything has changed for you since Rob Wade was elevated to the CEO position?

It’s an exciting time right now. You know, 2023 has had a very promising start for us. With Accused, it’s our most watched new drama in two years. On the unscripted side, Special Forces is the number one new, unscripted show. Next Level Chef had obviously a fantastic night [after the Super Bowl], and we’re poised, we think, for a successful launch on Animal Control. We’ve been working on this mission together for a while, and Rob has been incredibly supportive of all the scripted goals. It’s been really fun.

Are your planning or preparing for potential labor strikes later this year? Are you going to keep some shows in production to bank episodes in the event of work stoppages?

We’re absolutely getting ahead of it. With scripted, we’re ready for any scenario. We ordered season three of The Cleaning Lady early, both because we’re very passionate about the series and wanted to get ahead of next season in general. Our animated series are in are in full swing, and we don’t believe we’ll miss a beat with those. And then, you know, one of the great things about Fox and our collective strategy is Allison Wallach and her team on the unscripted side have several series that says they’re working on as well. We think we’re going to have a very robust fall regardless of what happens.

While you’re working to own more of your programming, you have these three very long-running animated shows in The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers and the two 911 series that are owned by Disney. They’re obviously still quite successful, but they’ve all been around a while and therefore are not cheap. How does that affect negotiations for new seasons? Would you anticipate another 11th hour deal for 911 again?

Disney is a great partner for us, as are the producers of the of the animated series. The Simpsons and Bob’s and Family Guy are all renewed for two additional seasons. We’re excited to continue that relationship for a long time. Lone Star came back gangbusters and we love the franchise; they are big successes. Around those kinds of series, there’s always lots to discuss, but right now we foresee having the 911 franchise on our air for as long as we can have it. We really try to have a balanced slate of programming, where they’re built around signature shows. Sometimes those signature shows are with great partners and sometimes you build them in house. But regardless, it’s about the shows and about the shared goal and continuing trying to pierce the culture. We’re lucky to have shows that resonate so much.

I know you don’t want to go down in history as the guy who ended The Simpsons, but given that it’s just adding to his record every time it’s on now and that it will have been on for 36 years by the end of this next order, are the conversations with [the producers] and Disney different than they might have been a few years ago? Is there talk of getting to 1,000 episodes or 40 seasons or something like that?

We haven’t gotten that granular. What is so impressive about all three of these animated series is the continued potential for episodic innovative storytelling year after year. The Simpsons are the all-time greats at keeping a show relevant, and it’s because of that storytelling that allows them to go season after season. You know, I don’t know that anyone would have predicted a show would go 36 seasons, but The Simpsons continually defies the odds. And I think our partners also see the value of our air, what we have to offer, especially on the power of Sunday night. [Airing after] football, it really allows the programming that we have on Sunday night to resonate in a way that allows that brilliant storytelling to continue to have the broadest reach of comedy. I think it’s a great partnership.