The power of Backrooms extends beyond the global box office and to TV markets in Germany.
This week’s Cologne confab Seriencamp, which has become a crucial cog in the international TV calendar machine, was replete with chatter about the new generation of creatives propping up the box office, with Kane Parsons’ Backrooms, Curry Barker’s Obsession and Markiplier’s Iron Lung all held aloft.
The question, for experienced and less experienced TV executives both from Germany and beyond, was how this wave can be introduced to the small screen.
The answer, according to a number of panels we attended, was to leverage fan bases, keep a beady eye on online communities and unearth unusual IP that can be adapted in new and interesting ways.
Robert Franke, a veteran German TV executive who runs ZDF Studios and Beta-backed Intaglio Films, perhaps put it most starkly when he said the new generation of Parsons’ and Barker’s is upending the established order.
Without mincing words, Franke said these twenty-somethings’ mega contribution to the global box office is “scary as f**k” for the older generation, “because we used to know that if we pour something into a distribution funnel, it will find its audience.”
“If you don’t have the humility to understand your perspective might not be valid for other communities, you are not going to tell an authentic story,” declared Franke.
Franke was joined by two people studying these communities who very much have their heads around this notion. Cultural marketers Jeannette Bohné and Franziska Gregor unveiled fascinating research that emerged from their work probing online communities and said producers need to truly engage with their fans when developing IP, as they pointed to how marketers behind this year’s biggest TV hit, Heated Rivalry, promoted the show by properly utilizing its fanbase.
Gregor Sauter, a former Leonine producer who now works for microdrama studio Red Pony, concurred, noting that “Heated Rivalry was a book, but Reddit and BookTok made it into IP.” “Gaming, fandoms and interest groups create IP, and that is why we are digging there,” he said.
Numerous people we chatted with were quick to point out that Backrooms, hipster studio A24’s top-grossing movie of all time, is not a wholly original idea but emerges from online communities like Reddit that gather and share innovative and unusual concepts. “Backrooms is a vibe,” said Bohné. “People saw these images and the stories kept on developing and now they are breaking records unlike a certain Marvel movie,” she added, the final clause being a reference to the floundering Mandalorian and Grogu.
With this in mind, Franke was just as quick to point out that Backrooms is set up like so many other movies, “traditionally produced” from the studio system. During the week at Seriencamp, Deadline spoke to a trio of producers who work in a more traditional space, all of whom signaled that they are upping efforts to mine the likes of Reddit and YouTube in order to spot the next trend or potentially hot piece of IP. These kind of conversations appeared to be taking place all over town, in the beer halls and restaurants of the vibrant West German city.
Streamers under fire
Steven Kane. Image: Rich Fury/Getty
Someone else who knows a thing or two about leveraging IP is Steven Kane, the showrunner behind Paramount+’s adaptation of Halo, with other credits including Jack Ryan and The Last Ship, both of which are based on novels.
Kane went back a little further than Backrooms for his example of killer IP, Shakespeare’s King Lear, which he said has been remade “from a different lens” multiple times down the decades, most recently in Succession. And if you don’t have killer IP at your disposal, Kane said, then you need to convince buyers “there is a world in this” and “if this is successful it could be franchised.”
Earning one of the loudest rounds of applause of the fest, Kane also delivered an impassioned plea for streamers like Netflix to resist the temptation to “let the data drive the creative” or risk “losing the humanity behind the storytelling.”
Speaking of Netflix, the streamer perhaps wasn’t out in full force in Cologne (it did put on a masterclass for new German series The Trap) but there were a few disgruntled producers flagging EMEA chief Larry Tanz’s remarks from last week.
Addressing a conference in London, Tanz, whose team has made German shows like Dark and Dear Child, punchily warned against a “one size fits all approach” to rights retention around Europe that risks benefitting huge indies backed by “private equity or sovereign wealth.”
It quickly emerged that his comments were referring to new rules in Germany, which forces global streaming platforms to invest 8–12% of their German revenue into local productions and also bans standard “work-for-hire” contracts by requiring streamers to relinquish rights.
Several industry insiders we spoke with on the ground noted that the obligations were in fact heavily watered down from what was initially being demanded. Furthermore, one felt Netflix is not exactly shy of cash, having almost bought Warner Bros. Discovery not so long ago, and so losing the odd bit of IP in one nation maybe isn’t overly damaging.
Netflix knows Germany is a nation packed full of top creatives and – with HBO Max Germany boss Anke Greifeneder setting out her stall to unearth the next voices of a generation during her fireside chat with Deadline – the streaming giant won’t want to ruffle too many feathers. How the fallout from Tanz’s remarks shapes out remains to be seen.
For now, Seriencamp taught us that industry execs, old and young, are expanding their understanding of where a project can emanate from. Whether its intended for a big screen or small one, this can only be a good thing.
