Miramax Boss on ‘The Gentlemen’, possible season 2, ‘Halloween’ series

Nearly four years after Marc Helwig joined Miramax as head of global television, he walked the red carpet in London on Tuesday for the world premiere of the company’s Guy Ritchie series for Netflix. The Knightsalongside famous guests such as David Beckham and Jason Statham.

The Knights It is a “pandemic series.” In 2020, after taking over Miramax TV, Ritchie’s The Knights The film was on Helwig’s mind, literally. At the end of 2019, a poster for the Miramax movie was placed in the corner of it, which remained there until 2022, and Helwig passed by it daily.

“It all started in the early days of the pandemic, when I first joined Miramax and found myself on these Zooms with Guy Ritchie and his producing partner Ivan Atkinson,” he said of the show’s origins. “The film had become a cult hit after its release; The film was one of the last major releases before the world shut down.” (The Knights was released in the US on January 24, 2020).

The trio looked for ways to adapt the film for television.

“There was an opportunity there because Guy had originally conceptualized it as a TV series and then (former Miramax CEO) Bill Block decided to make a movie. So there was a proof of concept that was developed there.”

What’s more, “the show represents a proof of concept for my mandate here at Miramax Television, which is to take the intellectual property of a film and adapt it to television with a filmmaker-centric approach. It is produced locally with a reasonable budget for that territory, although ultimately it is aimed at a global audience.”

The Knights was commissioned through Netflix UK, directed by Anne Mensah, and Miramax TV partnered with a local production company, Moonage Pictures.

“For me, the key thing was to find ways to try to make it work, that the budget was not beyond the scope of what is possible in this region, but that (the series) can reach that broad audience and have a sense of scale . to it,” Helwig said.

Created by Ritchie based on his film, The Knights, which debuted yesterday on Netflix, stars Theo James as a duke who unknowingly becomes part of a weed-growing empire and must navigate a world of eclectic and dangerous characters with nefarious agendas, while trying to protect his home and stay alive. The cast also includes Kaya Scodelario, Joely Richardson, Giancarlo Esposito, Peter Serafinowicz, Vinnie Jones and Ray Winstone.

James was committed to the role just when The white lotus The second season was about to premiere, placing it firmly in the pop culture conversation.

“He’s a wonderful actor and has a great movie star character,” Helwig said. “He also summarizes many qualities of that character very, very well. There are so many wild characters around him; he is your guide through that world and he does it extremely well.”

Season 2 plans

The Knights was conceived as an ongoing series that could last several seasons, and Ritchie already has ideas for a possible second installment.

“We’ve started that process,” Helwig said. “There are some writers we’ve talked to, we’ve certainly discussed a lot with Guy about what he’d like to do in a second season, what things he’d like to focus on.”

Helwig cautioned that the first season “has to work, and then we’ll know more,” adding, “but there has already been an active and ongoing discussion about what a second season would be.”

In success, The Knights The series could “generate some kind of universe, a Guy Ritchie world,” which could potentially lead to another movie, Helwig said.

That’s an approach Miramax is taking Hallowe’en.

Halloween TV Series: “A Creative Reboot”

In October, Miramax Televisión signed an agreement with Trancas to develop and co-produce a Hallowe’en Television series, which is expected to potentially launch a cinematic universe spanning film and television. (Miramax and Blumhouse collaborated with Trancas on the recent successful Hallowe’en film trilogy.)

“We are on a fast track, it is a big priority for us. “We’ve had a lot of interesting conversations over the last few months with a number of really talented people, and I think we’ll have a pretty clear idea of ​​what we’re going to do very soon,” Helwig said, adding, “We’re hoping to lock down the creative team very soon.”

While the search for a writer is still ongoing, the idea for the television series has already been identified.

“It’s a big world,” Helwig said of the 13-film franchise. The most recent trilogy that culminates with Halloween ends provided a fitting conclusion to the story, “so I don’t think it’s an opportunity to put that behind us.”

Then the series returns to Hallowe’en origins of the franchise.

“The basis is the original film, the John Carpenter film, the characters in that film and perhaps a group of characters that we haven’t focused on as much in recent film versions or even several of them.” Helwig said. “It is a complete creative reboot and a return to the original film, rather than being derived from any of the more recent film adaptations.”

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At Netflix, Miramax is also in the works The henna artist, a series based on the best-selling debut novel by Alka Joshi, with Freida Pinto as star and executive producer. Also in development at Miramax is The key mana limited series about disgraced financier Arif Naqvi with Dev Patel starring and executive producing.

“We’re making good progress on both right now,” Helwig said, adding that “we’re also very excited.” Ready-to-Weara serial adaptation of the Miramax film, which is on the BBC.

“Relationships focused on talent, film intellectual property and filmmakers became opportunities in television,” Helwig said, summarizing the company’s strategy.

Hollywood contraction: “it’s like The Hunger Games“

“We’re preparing for it every day with everything we do,” Helwig said of the current contraction in the television business. “You just have to assume that the money is no longer there. You have to assume that the slot machines are no longer there. It’s going to be difficult, it’s like The Hunger Games. There are a lot of people fighting for very little and I don’t see that coming to an end this year. Or maybe ever.”

The downsizing may have been inevitable, Helwig admits.

“Maybe it’s a much-needed contraction,” he said. “It was not sustainable at the level it was at. So it’s probably an alignment that’s in sync with economic demands, but it makes it difficult for everyone.”

Facing fewer opportunities and lower budgets, “you have to be pretty nimble in organizing these projects,” Helwig said. “We’re certainly very happy to do partnerships, co-productions, things that minimize and mitigate the risk for us a little bit, but get us to a place where we have multiple things going on. We have smaller shows, we did that. He turkish detective series for Paramount last year, which will now premiere on the BBC in the spring. So it’s a mix of things.”

The Knights: “A dream come true”

Personally reflecting on The Knightsof the dazzling premiere, “It’s very gratifying, because it really started in a very unspectacular way as a discussion between three people, Guy, Ivan and me, about what this could be,” Helwig said. “It wasn’t exactly the most vibrant market we came to at the height of the pandemic, it wasn’t a bidding war situation. It was really something that had to be built from scratch to meet distribution needs.

“And to come to the end of that journey at the Theater Royal Drury Lane with so much pomp and circumstance is a dream come true for me,” he added. “I hope it goes well for him. I hope people like it. But again, for me, it’s kind of a proof of concept for what I’ve been trying to get going for the last few years and hopefully it bodes well for future projects.”