Media Res CEO Michael Ellenberg on ‘The Morning Show’ Season Two – The Hollywood Reporter

4 years after launching indie studio Media Res, Michael Ellenberg is crossing the end line with the primary present he is developed as studio government: restricted collection Scenes in a wedding. The Jessica Chastain-Oscar Isaac collection, which premieres September 12, brings the 46-year-old again to his outdated residence at HBO, the place he spent 5 years as a TV collection lead. Within the interim, Ellenberg’s 30-person firm has arrange scripted collection for all the main broadcasters, together with Apple TV+’s Morning (returns September seventeenth for the second season) and international manufacturing Pachinko (booked for 2022); an hour-long darkish comedy at Netflix; and Amazon’s upcoming Boots Riley I am Virgo.

The New York native, who moved West along with his spouse and earned a legislation diploma at NYU in 2000, sees his function now as a mixture of expertise he cast whereas working as a advisor. the right way to be an government and producer at HBO (True Detective, Boardwalk Empire), Scott Free (Prometheus, Robin Hood) and vp improvement at Scott Rudin Productions (a time period he mentioned he did not need to focus on).

On the finish of August, the daddy of two sat with The Hollywood Reporter principally to debate this distinctive second for indie studios, the red-hot marketplace for ebook rights, and the methods by which the pandemic forces Morning to rotate.

Hey Sunshine was not too long ago offered for $900 million. What do you do about that deal?

Which it says, in a bigger sense, impartial corporations are nonetheless essential. We’re in a interval of consolidation in Hollywood because the Nineteen Thirties and there shall be just a few actually essential impartial corporations. Hey Sunshine is one, and Media Res is, we imagine, one.

Does that worth make you consider promoting?

Our long-term objective is to do nice work and be the main supplier not just for scripted collection however in the end different genres and areas. There are distinctive alternatives for partnerships and we’re open to these alternatives. If it permits us to do greater than we will now, then we’ll take that critically. However we’re not merely searching for money with lottery tickets.

What’s the function of an indie studio in a time when firms virtually solely purchase from their very own studios?

If the work is nice, the market will care for itself. Do they want your cash? However do they want your experience? Do they want your paperwork? Do they want your work ethic and strategy? The reply to date is sure. If that modifications, we’ll must pivot, however I do not see why.

Media Res massive within the ebook house. How aggressive is the ebook rights market currently?

That is loopy. There was just a few homes for literary materials, now everybody sees the worth of positive materials. It’s essential get in early and spend some huge cash. That is what the film trade was like 20 years in the past.

Who tends to be your most important competitor?

We often discover ourselves bidding in opposition to the networks themselves – that is enormous change. Community will not work quickly [before]; they may wait. So generally it is a small firm like ours bidding in opposition to Amazon and Disney. And we did OK.

How do you see the pandemic affecting buying and selling exercise?

At first, the primary stress on networks was “Can we return?” The prices you already know however little are calculated prematurely. Now, the truth is, their price range has grown to double digits throughout the board. It’s doable to movie safely throughout COVID, however it is vitally costly. It impacts the quantity of issues being purchased as a result of everyone seems to be doing it [overall programming] price range, you need to ebook much less reveals.

How is storytelling affected by the pandemic?

With Morning, it will be loopy to hurry ahead and never discuss to the world we’re in. It’s the language of this system. The pandemic has solely simply begun, and we rapidly put collectively an strategy [showrunner] Kerry Ehrin put it, that’s, “Take into account the earlier months. What have all of us been so busy with that we will not discover the tsunami that’s about to take our lives? “There was this bomb underneath the desk and thru the season extra characters grew to become conscious that one thing actually massive with the pandemic was coming.

How the premium TV bundle market has modified within the years because you offered it Morning?

The pandemic has not chilled any of those massive packages. The influence of the pandemic is that it’s best to have massive packages, in any other case it will likely be far more tough.

What did you study your self within the transition between leaving HBO and launching Media Res?

I really like doing what I do. I used to be a movie producer after which a tv government. What acquired me enthusiastic about beginning Media Res was attempting to determine the right way to mix these two issues. The inspiration for the corporate was to construct an elite supplier for corporations like HBO – principally, construct the corporate that I needed to be on the opposite finish of the cellphone after I was CEO. community.

Do you assume you’ll return to the working room?

I’m presently the CEO and government producer, and [I love] can do each roles. It is also laborious for me to think about giving up.

You come to HBO for the primary time since 2016 with Scenes in a wedding. What’s a very powerful change?

Scenes in a wedding won’t solely air on HBO however on HBO Max – that is essentially the most basic distinction.

Do you end up shocked by how a lot HBO has adopted? again to it franchises with issues like Intercourse and the town and Sport of Thrones?

There’s stress all over the place for the quantity. You’ll attempt to purchase a number of good things out there, after which you need to look in your closet and draw from it. It is an extremely fierce, aggressive market, and never each undertaking can have Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston or Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac. So in that setting, if you do not have a type of issues or a superb ebook, then, sure, you must create new stuff – and if in case you have a library, you will be mining it proper now. .

In your profession, what’s the very best gross sales pitch you’ve got ever heard??

True Detective season one. Have an entire imaginative and prescient and a transparent goal.

Trying again, what do you establish as your highest and lowest skilled moments?

Lincoln Middle’s premiere Morning should rank as a peak second. I grew up on the Higher West Aspect, so it was a miracle to launch Apple companies at Lincoln Middle. And the bottom? Once I left HBO. It was the primary time in my profession that I did not know what the long run would maintain. What you could not see on the time was that we would not be at Lincoln Middle if I hadn’t left HBO. That’s the knowledge of center age.

The edited interview is lengthy and clear.

This story first appeared within the September 8 problem of The Hollywood Reporter. Click on right here to subscribe.