European Production Bosses Debate U.S. Agent Struggles – Series Mania

deadline.com:

As competition for the best European talent ramps up, bosses at some of the continent’s biggest production houses are finding U.S.

agents tricky to deal with.According to Christian Vesper, The Hand of God producer Fremantle’s President of Global Drama, agents are chasing too high a price for their clients which fails to “support that nation’s production model,” while Marina Williams, the Co-Founding Partner of Asacha Media Group, said “the price isn’t always acceptable” on these deals and they tend to be more complex than those traditionally struck in Europe.“We are running into this a lot and you have to argue constantly,” added Vesper.Local European agents are also grappling with the challenge of landing the biggest streamer shows for their clients and keeping these clients away from the big Hollywood agents as competition grows, according to Federation Entertainment Co-Founder Lionel Uzan.“If they want to survive, the question for these local agents is how they keep their talent and get them work on the bigger shows,” he said. “This is where indie groups are a good asset.”The Series Mania panelists all work for production houses who have been busy buying up labels and striking talent deals, as the streamers establish more and more of a European footprint.They argued that top European talent are more keen to strike such deals with production houses than SVoDs, coming a day after Call My Agent!

writer Quoc Dang Tran tied with Universal International Studios and in the same month as Angelina Jolie’s mega three-year Fremantle deal.“We’re agnostic and can work with everyone,” said Lars Blomgren, Head of Scripted EMEA at Banijay, who recently signed up Netflix’s The Spy producer Alain Goldman. “If a creative is tied to an