EXCLUSIVE: The recently-launched Swiss Studios is readying a slate of streamer-friendly originals, together with a drama sequence set in a German oil city and restricted sequence a few Swiss samurai.
Launched last month as a collective of 5 European manufacturing corporations, Swiss Studios is in search of to make the most of Switzerland‘s ‘Lex Netflix‘ laws, which instructs world streamers akin to Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ to reinvest 4% of their native revenue in Swiss movie and tv productions, or pay a tax.
Swiss Studios CEO Malte Probst advised Deadline that streamers have been keen to pay the 4% “as alongside because the content material is of they high quality they want.” He estimates the tax will usher in round 20M Swiss francs ($22.4M) immediately, however with related prices may add as a lot as 40M Swiss francs annually. “It’s a sizeable quantity,” he added.
Deadline can reveal Swiss Studios — which includes Elite Filmproduktion, Praesens-Movie Manufacturing, Distinction Sequence, Bavaria Fiction and Kinescope Movie — has as many as 55 tasks in growth, with a plan to maneuver forwards with round 12 chosen by way of committee. These will likely be pitched to streamers.
Amongst these in growth are Black Gold, which Swiss Studios/Kinescope Movie is creating as a co-production with FilmNation and NDR.
The six-part multi-season drama, from Justin Koch and Matthias Greving, tells the story of when the invention of oil in a small city in Northern Germany within the late nineteenth century. This led the hardworking village inhabitants being torn between progress, environmental destruction and survival.
Probst advised Deadline the sequence has a finances of round €20M ($21.1M) and was being pitched as a “Yellowstone meets Germany.” We hear high American and worldwide expertise are hooked up.
Swiss Samurai is Swiss Studios/Elite Filmproduction restricted sequence about Switzerland’s Andy Hug, the primary ever non-Asian to win the K1 kickboxing championship. An enormous star in his residence nation and Japan, Hug died beneath suspicious circumstances in 2000.
The present is being produced in shut collaboration with Hug’s household, and Swiss Studios is eyeing an Japanese companion, mentioned Probst.
Valerie Lehmann, one other Swiss Studios and Elite Filmproduction mission, is being readied as a multi-season high-end crime thriller sequence based mostly on Swiss author Silvia Götschi’s crime thriller novels. Pascal Walder and Tom Kolinski have created the mission, with season one working to 6 components.
The books comply with the titular detective, Valerie Lehmann, who’s a robust, trendy lady who for private causes should transfer to the distant Swiss mountainside combating each crime and rejection by locals.
Within the vein of Tiger King, Leopard is a Swiss Studios and Praesens Filmproduktion restricted sequence, created by Cihan Inan and Benedikt Eppenberger. Set in Nineteen Seventies Switzerland, it follows the rise of Hans Ulrich Lenzlinger from poor upbringings to one of many kingpins of the nation’s underbelly, chased by the Stasi for trafficking East Germans into West Germany. His homicide in 1979 continues to be unsolved.
Lastly, Queen of the Eiger comes from Swiss Studios and Bavaria Fiction Switzerland in co-production with Luck Movies. The docu-series focuses on Daisy Voog, who was the primary lady to ever climb the Eiger north face, again in 1964 – however funding her expeditions by committing monetary fraud on her employer to get it carried out.
‘Swiss tales with worldwide potential’
“As you may see, we’re making an attempt to create tales with worldwide potential out of Switzerland,” mentioned Probst in an unique interview.
Together with having first draw up the blueprint for Swiss Studios with former Sky Deutschland colleague Marcus Ammon and now performing as its CEO, Probst can be the Chief Product Officer, Fiction, at Blue Leisure, overseeing its TV leisure tasks, authentic productions, transactional offers and content material partnerships on the subsidiary of Swiss telco Swisscom. Earlier than becoming a member of Blue in 2021, he spent 15 years at Sky Deutschland and its predecessor, Premiere.
His position is to work with Distinction Movie chief Ivan Madeo, Bavaris Fiction Switzerland’s Ammon and Dominic Fistarol, Kinescope’s Matthias Greving, Praesens-Movie Manufacturing’s Corinne Rossi, and Elite Filmproduktion’s Roger Kaufmann to resolve on what tasks ought to go forwards and be pitched.
“You possibly can think about it isn’t the only of duties to place 5 manufacturing homes collectively, however should you do it with folks you belief who’ve the identical worth set, it may be a really good course of,” mentioned Probst. “We’re working with streamers and growing based mostly on their wants via market intelligence.”
Every companion has an obligation to offer Swiss Studios with a primary take a look at new tasks, that are then thought-about as a committee. Ought to an concept be handed on, the producer can then take it out themselves.
Probst can be engaged on the technique that may successfully see Swiss Studios act as a proxy for streamers in Switzerland. “There may be some huge cash flowing in to the nation, however not one of the streamers have forces on the bottom to handle it. We may do it for them,” he mentioned.
Native tax break techniques will likely be tapped so as to add finance to tasks, with Greving from Kinescope an skilled in tax administration. “We’re making an attempt to construct a competence heart in a studio style, however in the end we will likely be judged by the standard of our output.
An additional goal would be the French-language market, given Switzerland’s sizeable variety of native audio system, and the very fact the nation has a co-production settlement with French-speaking Canada.
