Miramax Boss in the second season of the potential The Gentlemen spinoff of the Halloween series

Gregory Zabelski/Netflix

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

Gentlemen It is an “epidemiological series.” In 2020, after he acquired Ritchie's company, Miramax TV Gentlemen The movie was on Helwig's mind, literally. A Miramax movie billboard was placed on his street corner in late 2019 and remained there until 2022, with Helwig passing by it daily.

“It started in the early days of the pandemic when I first joined Miramax and found myself on Zooms with Guy Ritchie and his producing partner Evan Atkinson,” he said of the show's origins. The film became a huge hit after its release. The film was one of the last major releases before the world shut down. (Gentlemen It was released in the United States on January 24, 2020.)

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

“There was a chance that Jay had originally conceived it as a TV series and then made it happen [former Miramax CEO] Bill Block decided to go make a movie. So there was a proof of concept baked in there.

Furthermore, “The show is a proof of concept for my mandate here at Miramax Television, which takes the intellectual property of films and adapts them for television with a filmmaker-centric approach. It is produced locally on a budget that is reasonable for that region, though it is ultimately aimed at a global audience.”

Gentlemen It has been commissioned through Netflix UK, directed by Anne Mensah, with Miramax TV partnering with local production company, Moonage Pictures.

“For me, the main thing was to look for ways to try to make it work, and that the budget did not exceed the scope of what was possible in this area, but [the series] “You can reach such a broad audience and have a sense of scale for it,” Helwig said.

Created by Richie based on his film, Gentlemen, which debuted on Netflix yesterday, stars Theo James as a duke who unwittingly 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 survive. The cast also includes Kaya Scodelario, Julie Richardson, Giancarlo Esposito, Peter Serafinowicz, Vinnie Jones, and Ray Winstone.

James has been locked in for the role as well White lotus Season 2 was about to debut, putting it firmly in the pop culture conversation.

“He's a great actor, with a great movie star quality,” Helwig said. “He also embodies a lot of the qualities of that character really well. There's a lot of wild personalities around him; he's your guide through this world, and he does that very well.”

Season 2 plans

Gentlemen It's conceived as an ongoing series that could run for several seasons, and Ritchie already has ideas for a potential sequel.

“We've started that process,” Helwig said. “We talked to some of the writers, and I definitely had a lot of discussions with Jay about what he might want to do in Season 2, and what things to focus on.”

Season 1 “should lead, and then we'll know more,” Helwig warned, adding: “But it's been a really active ongoing discussion about what Season 2 will be like.”

In success, Gentlemen Helwig said the series “could spawn a kind of universe, a Guy Ritchie universe,” which would likely lead to another film.

This is the approach that Miramax applies Halloween.

Halloween TV Series: A “Creative Reset”

Miramax Television in October signed a deal with Trancas to develop and co-produce A.J Halloween A television series, it is expected to launch a cinematic universe that spans cinema and television. (Miramax and Blumhouse collaborated with Trancas on the latter's successful film Halloween film trilogy.)

“We're on a fast track, it's a big priority for us. We've had a lot of exciting conversations in recent months with a number of really talented people, and I think we'll have a good idea of ​​what we'll be doing very soon,” Helwig said. “We're hoping to close the team down.” Creative very soon.

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

“It's a big world,” Helwig said of the 13-film series. The latest trilogy culminated with The end of Halloween He offered a fitting conclusion to the story, “So I don't think this is an opportunity to get away with it.”

So the series goes back to Halloween Franchise assets.

“The basis of it is the original film, John Carpenter's film, the characters from that film, and probably a bunch of characters that we haven't really focused on much in the recent film versions or even in a number of them,” Helwig said. “It's a complete creative reset and going back to the original film, rather than directing any of the newer adaptations of the film.”

Development pipeline updates

At Netflix, Miramax is also working Henna artist, The series is based on Alka Joshi's best-selling debut novel, with Freida Pinto attached to star and executive produce. Also in development at Miramax 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, “We're also very excited about.” Pret a Portera series adapted from the Miramax film shown on the BBC.

“The focus on talent, film intellectual property and relationships with filmmakers has shifted to opportunities in television,” Helwig said, summarizing the company's strategy.

Hollywood Shrinkage: “It's like hunger Games“

“We're preparing for it every day with everything we do,” Helwig said of the ongoing downturn in the television industry. “You just have to assume the money's not there anymore. You've got to assume the openings aren't there anymore. It's going to be hard, it's like hunger Games. There are too many people fighting over too little and I don't see it really ending this year. Or perhaps at all.”

Helwig admits that downsizing was probably inevitable.

“This may be a much-needed downturn,” he said. “It wasn't sustainable at the level it was. So the alignment is probably in sync with the economic demands, but it makes it difficult for everyone.”

Faced with fewer opportunities and smaller budgets, “you have to be very smart about how you put these projects together,” Helwig said. “We're definitely very happy with the partnership, the co-production, the things that reduce the risk and mitigate it a little bit for us, but it gets us to a place where we have a lot of things. We have smaller shows, we've done that.” the Turkish investigator Last year's Paramount series, which will premiere on the BBC in the spring. So it's a combination of things.”

Gentlemen: “A dream come true”

Reflects personally Gentlemen“It's very rewarding, because it really started out in a very unspectacular way as a discussion between three people, Jay, Evan and me, about what this could be,” Helwig said. “It wasn't the most vibrant market we entered at the height of the pandemic, and it wasn't a bidding war situation. It was really something that had to be built from the ground up to meet distribution needs.”

He added: “And to get 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.” “Hopefully it will do well. Hopefully people will like it. But again, for me, this is a proof of concept for what I've been trying to achieve for the last couple of years, and I hope that bodes well for future projects.”