1. MAMMA MIA, WHAT A SHOW!
Transforming a content /franchising from scripted to unscripted is a trend that has become quite frequent recently. Among the titles of the last year we can remember The Real Dirty Dancing (from the famous movie of 1987: Friday’s Espresso - 28th Jan), The Real Love Boat (that takes its inspiration from the iconic 1970s scripted series), 007′s Road to a Million (a James Bond-inspired reality competition series, both in Friday’s Espresso - 1st Apr) and others.
Now it’s the turn of the musical Mamma Mia! (based on the songs of the ABBA) that will be a brand-new format on Uk channel ITV1 with the titles Mamma Mia! I Have a Dream. The competition show will search for two novice artists to play the roles of Sophie and Sky in a new version of the famous musical in London’s West. Contestants will be mentored by guest stars through unique workshops and judged by a panel of well-known experts in both music and theater.
The format is from The X Factor producer Thames (a Fremantle label) and Littlestar.
2. SOCIAL TALK WITH ACCIDENTS
The interest (and the big investments) for AVoD (like You Tube), BVoD (Broadcaster Video on Demand, i.e.video content produced and published by traditional broadcasters that’s available online and on-demand) and FAST channels (which has been growth because people seem to love watching free content without any prior commitment) has increased tremendously in this period (see Friday’s Espresso of 2nd and 9th Dec).
The last news is that the English 23-year old Brandon Baum, aka Brandon B (@brandonb), a visual effects artist and content creator with over 7.7 million cumulative followers across TikTok, YouTube and other socials, has established an independent production company based in North London: Studio B.
The company will focus on developing original Brandon B-fronted digital-first formats and contents for brands looking to reach Gen Z and social-first audiences. Their first production is This Interview Will Self Destruct, which sees celebrity guests (as actors Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal and others) being interviewed while facing a number of “chaotic” accidents, such as trap doors, wrestler invasions and set destruction.
Let’s see if these disruptive trends will be also profitable on the long run…
3. THE CHARM OF KOREAN FORMATS
Another trend (no longer so recent) is the success of Korean formats all around the world, sometimes - to tell the truth - above their actual value. In this issue let’s introduce 2 of them, very different for genre and dynamics.
The first one is the brand-new primetime show Keep Talking & I Love It: MMA of the Tongues, from the South Korean broadcaster MBC, in which participants compete in the “Mixed Martial Arts of talking” and put their storytelling skills to the test.
The concept is easy: 8 contestants enter a ring and have 5 minutes each to capture the attention of the audience with their stories, in a kind of “storytelling battle”. Before they reach their climax, they are stopped and the audience votes on which contestant’s story they want to hear the end of. A celebrity panel also comments on each story.
It is difficult to judge it from this brief description, but it seems to have at least the value of originality.
The second one is The Genius Game, from the entertainment and mass media company CJ ENM’s and described as “social survival game-show”, that has been localized in the Netherlands, where it premiered as The Genius: The Netherlands on October 3. Now Banijay has inked an option deal to adapt it in the U.K., Denmark and Norway.
Each episode is devided into a Main Match and a Dead Match. All competitors participate in the Main Match and the player with lowest score appoints another player to compete in the Death Match: the looser is eliminated and the winner takes the money the loser had in the game.
Beyond the suggestive set design, the formal attention and the atmosphere full of suspense, the general structure and the games of the both rounds seem a bit weak and already seen (card & board games, something like odd or even and so on). The packaging is important, but the content even more.