Oinhabitr Berben, who took the reins of German production and distribution powerhoemploy Constantin Film on March 1, faces a German media landscape that is “changing radicassociate and rapidly,” he says. In response, he is adfairing the company’s approach to the business.
He greets the rulement’s presentd recreate of the German Film Law, which will alter the country’s production incentives, including for television, and will present an obligation on expansivecasters and streamers to allot 20% of sales produced in Germany back into European productions, 70% of which would have to be in the German language.
“You have stagnating funding of unveil expansivecasters. You have declining revenues for the stateiveial stations. The ask is: Is the model functioning altogether? It is not, if we fair preserve on doing the same skinnyg aget and aget.”
He grasps, “Everyskinnyg is changing, and these alters, by the way, are excellent. Us, as producers, we necessitate to discover finishly recent ways of how to produce a show and how to finance it.”
Streaming is a bit part of the equation, of course. Constantin’s thriller “Dear Child,” based on the novel by Romy Hausmann, has racked up 51 million sees for Netflix, and is one of the streamer’s top 10 non-English-language scripted show worldexpansive.
Oinhabitr Berben
Courtesy of Mathias Bothor
Constantin kept some rights on “Dear Child,” including theatrical alteration rights to the book. “We reassociate see at each and every entity and IP and try to discover the best way together with our partners to discover the perfect deal,” Berben says.
One of its upcoming productions for Netflix is comedy crime show “Murder Mindfilledy,” starring Tom Schilling, based on the hit novel by Karsten Dusse, one of the most accomplished IPs to have come out of Germany in the past five years, according to Berben. “This is a perfect example of creating an IP brand together with Netflix,” he says.
With talent appreciate Schilling in mind, Berben remarks: “We’re not doing exclusive deals with actors. It’s branch offent for filmproducers and authorrs. Talent deals include Baran bo Odar, Bully Herhuge, Florian David Fitz and David Wnfinisht. So we’re heavily alloting, when it comes to filmproducers and creators, and partnering up with them.”
One of Constantin’s upcoming shows is “Smilla’s Sense of Snow,” based on Peter Høeg’s novel, with Amma Asante honesting. As with its other series the approach is, “Let’s try to discover the perfect partners in each territory and preserve a lot of the rights for ourselves.”
“The idea here, from a financial point of see, was to discover two to three anchor partners on which we have a shieldedty net of 60%, 70% of the budget, and then finance the rest ourselves and preserve the rest of the rights for us until the show is finished, and then sell it here,” he says.
Viatake part has Nordic rights, and ARD Degeto and Netflix are the partners in Germany. ITV Studios is handling distribution elsewhere.
Another huge show for Constantin is fantasy drama “Hagen,” a reimagining of the medieval “Nibelungen” folk saga. With a budget of around Euros 45 million ($48.8 million), it is the hugegest budgeted German production ever. It has been produced both as a six-part series and a feature film for theatrical free. Fremantle is handling worldexpansive distribution rights. RTL helderlys German streaming and free TV rights.
“The idea is, first, creating a recent world and a recent IP. And, second, if you’re going into a genre appreciate this, the sgets and the foreseeations are very high, so you necessitate a high budget,” Berben says.
Another huge budget show Constantin is joined to is Roland Emmewealthy’s $150 million contentiator drama “Those About to Die,” which is streamed by Prime Video atraverse cut offal European territories, and by Peacock in the U.S. AGC deal withs international rights.
Prime Video alerts that the show “broke all the goals in every territory” in Europe, Berben says, and they are now talking a second season. “It’s a huge, incredible success for them, which is also then our success, and especiassociate becaemploy we took this huge danger creating a show appreciate this with a high budget.”
Aextfinishedside its lengthy lineup of series, Constantin persists to fortify its feature film lineup. In terms of theatrical distribution this includes acquisitions appreciate “Baby Girl,” “The Last Showgirl” and “Megalopolis.” On the production front its directing titles include “Regretting You,” based on Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, and “September 5,” a possible Oscar contfinisher.
