On a panel at the APOS media summit, held in Indonesia, content executives working in Asia said that among their top priorities are producing content to meet the rising demand for unscripted work in the region, and giving projects to the next generation of creative talent.
Nicholas Simon, founder and CEO of Thailand-headquartered Indochina Productions, has racked up an enviable list of producing credits servicing top shows from around the world like The White Lotus Season 3, Avengers: Endgame, Da 5 Bloods and The Creator.
Now, he is working hard to help the next generation of Thai talent find an international footing. Just last month in Cannes, he unveiled a new Thai content studio that he has co-founded, named Tsixtysix. The studio has already brought two young Thai female directors into the fold, helming two features: The Great Esarn Heist, (directed by Cantana Tiprachart); and Songkhram Songkran, (the directorial debut of Pisinee Khaosamai).
“A big hit for us was White Lotus Season 3 and we managed to elevate a lot of Thai crew on that,” added Simon.
Part of nurturing the next generation involves setting high standards for labor practice and remuneration in the industry, amid tight budgets and a tough economic outlook.
“We brought a lot of Hollywood practices and international practices to our various production companies,” said Simon. “We sign writers to deals that are WGA standards, with things like ceilings and percentages of the overall budget, but in tune to what Thailand and Japan can afford.”
Tsixtysix also picked up the Grand Prix in the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes for fantasy black comedy A Useful Ghost.
“That’s important, and the project got our name out there,” said Simon. “Our slate is theatrical-driven, with a price point of around one million dollars. We’re using a combination of self-funding, private equity and brand product placement to finance.”
Deepak Dhar, founder and group CEO of Banijay Asia & Endemol Shine India, also wants to find future stars who can become headliners in the next five to ten years and “carry these franchises forward.”
For Disalada “Stang” Disayanon, head of content at Bangkok-based Kantana Group, said that the production company nurtures creative talent by running and developing several in-house writers rooms.
The Thai studio is behind hit series like family thriller Master of the House, which became the first Thai series to reach the top spot on Netflix’s global top 10 TV (non-English) list and appeared in the top 10 list across 63 countries worldwide.
Disayanon said that mixing local elements like housekeepers, with universal themes — helped the show find success both in Thailand and abroad.
“We centered the show around the dynamic of domestic workers working for rich families, which is still relevant to Thai culture today,” said Disayanon. “We wanted to dramatize that, and on top of it, we layered in universal themes such as power struggles, inequality and family relationships that people across borders can watch and relate to.”
Disayanon is also working on feature films, with a recent work, Tomb Watcher, already sold to 20 countries theatrically, and a post-theatrical deal for the film with an unannounced global platform.
One repeated topic that emerged from the panel discussion was the rising demand for unscripted and reality content, particularly driven by streamers.
For Disayanon, her studio worked on five seasons of modeling reality show The Face Thailand before the pandemic. This year, she unveiled that the show will make a return with a new season — six years since the last season aired.
“We have done several seasons of The Face before the pandemic, but we were cautious about bringing it back. However, we thought that this year was the right time as we wanted to work on more genres and expand our content library.”
For Dhar, one of his company’s most popular shows in India is reality series Bigg Boss, based on the Big Brother franchise, which first aired in the Netherlands.
“We need to find things that work in a more local and hyperlocal market,” said Dhar. “We’ve had great success with Bigg Boss in India — that’s one of the key formats that has been very successful in all the different markets in India. The fun fact that I keep saying is that we produce 800 days of Bigg Boss in our calendar year of 365 days.”
Banijay Asia is also working on an ambitious reality show in collaboration with U.S.-based Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA) where “one ordinary Indian citizen” will be selected for a journey to space on a future Blue Origin New Shepard mission.
Dhar added that other genres beyond unscripted that has proved popular in India include journalist-related shows and police procedurals.
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