From Remade Drama to Original Crime – HBO Europe’s Original Television Productions

Abstract

In this article, we examine developments in HBO’s original European productions based on a quantitative overview of production from 2007 to early 2020. We supplement this overview with an analysis of the generic changes during the past decade as well as a practical producers’ approach to remakes. The intention is not to analyse the specific series’ content; rather, we scrutinize genre, talent and remakes through the perspective of the HBO brand and the creatives behind the series. The main empirical material for this article is interviews with key informants and an exploitation of online resources. Altogether, this establishes both a historical overview of the productions and an up-to-date idea of how the transnational institution considers its own local endeavours.

Audiences of popular European television crime drama: A nine-country study on consumption patterns, attitudes and drivers of transcultural connection

“…The increase in the circulation of European TV series through new distribution platforms, and the simultaneous growth of European production of high-end dramas (Jiménez, 2020: 12; Iordache et al, 2021; Raats and Jensen, 2020), however, may generate deeper bonds with ‘our European Others’ through ‘mediated encounters’ (Bondebjerg et al, 2017: 27). Or, as Joke Hermes says, ‘popular cultural texts and practices are important because they provide much of the wool, from which the social tapestry is knit’ (2005: 11). Therefore, it is also not a coincidence that many EU policies in the field of media that have been put in place over recent years have attempted to not only harmonize and protect the European media sector but also to ‘protect European cultural identity from “the American challenge”’ (Papathanassopoulos and Negrine, 2011: 64).…”

“…The quality and prevalence of domestic content may serve as an explanation. The Eastern European region has only recently started producing high-budget serialized crime series that can compete with the preferred storytelling and aesthetics of US content (Hansen et al, 2021). In contrast, Nordic drama enjoys relatively high domestic popularity and global success.…”

Scandinavian success as European policy dilemma: creative Europe’s funding for TV drama co-productions, 2014-20

“…At the same time, there are significant internal differences between the Eastern European media markets, which means that the same natural affinities between broadcasters across borders do not exist to the same level as in the Nordics. While Czech TV production, for example, depends largely on (still scarce) public funding (Szczepanik 2018), the Romanian high-end TV industry depends on the transnationally active services like HBO (Bengesser and Keszeg 2020;Hansen et al 2021). Different general economic systems and production costs for TV production also creates differences that influence ways of collaboration.…”

“…The low-priced workforce establishes new opportunities for local production services, attracting foreign production to Eastern territories, which may create local talent development and potentially local production hubs and future co-productions. In Hungary, for example, HBO's local productions have inspired and enabled further domestic high-quality series (Hansen et al 2021), but the experience with run-away film productions in Prague suggests limited spill-over effects and up-ward mobility of local creatives (Szczepanik 2016).…”

The ‘Netflix Original’ and what it means for the production of European television content

“…Eastern and Central European investments are much lower. One of the explanations could also be the strong position of HBO Europe in this region, known for co-producing and commissioning domestic fiction (see Hansen et al, 2020). However, the recent investments in Poland and Russia prove that Netflix is already expanding into new markets (Dziadul, 2019;Thomson, 2020).…”