In relation to the recent acquisition of the production company Bad Wolf, Wayne Garvie, President of Sony Pictures Television International, revealed on his conference during MIPTV 2022, that the company is ‘working on turning the team into the biggest drama studio in UK’.
The executive shared the session with the co-founder of Bad Wolf, Jane Tranter, where they discussed business strategies for this year.Garvie began the talk by explaining the reasons for the acquisition of the production company founded by Tranter, assuring ‘we can see a demand for European content’, he said.
Tranter said that the next step for Bad Wolf was to join with a major in order to expand, and expressed how the liked how SPTVI‘made other production companies grow’: ‘We liked what they did with Left Bank, the production company responsible for the hit The Crown, and we liked the independent profile that they continue to maintain and their operation in the USA’, added the executive.
With Bad Wolf, SPTVI capitalizes on three high-profile production companies (Left Bank and Eleven) with which it plans to be one of the providers of indie content for platforms and for movie theaters.
‘We are a team that is quite cohesive and understands the style of each of these companies and Sony allows them to have the creative freedom to continue to grow. If some bring me a book to turn into a TV show, I would immediately know which of these indies to give it to’,Garvie said.
The two executives also provided details of Bad Wolf‘s first dramatic project following the Sony deal, an adaptation of Bernard Cornwell‘s Warlord Chronicles with Peaky Blinders director Otto Bathurst.
On the other hand, both executives commented that the development agreements are taking them in a very different way from how streamers work: ‘We are putting first the agreement with creative talent before overlapping the agreement with any platform. We want the product to stand out the most’, Garvie said.
Meanwhile, Tranter reported that Bad Wolf is working on the development of the next season of Doctor Who, but did not offer details of who will play the next Doctor, but announced that it will be released by 2023, taking over production with BBC Studios.
