Aussie TV formats make it big abroad

With a string of Aussie TV formats being remade overseas, Brooke Hemphill finds out how local production companies can get in on the act and whether there’s actually any money to be made in a feature that first appeared in Encore. 

When Joe Connor and Renegade Films began shopping the concept for a quirky TV series about a talking dog around Australian networks, they were met with blank stares. Based on a short made for the Tropfest film competition titled Wilfred, the idea failed to generate much support. Connor says: “Everyone said it would never be anything more than a short film.” A decade on, the format is now into its fourth series on the American cable network FX after a two season run on Australian television. It’s also about to be remade in Russia.

But Wilfred is not the only success story when it comes to local TV formats. As you read this, Peter Duncan from Essential Media is acting as co-showrunner on the US version of comedy Rake. Phil Lloyd is slaving over his keyboard on the pilot script for a remake of The Moodys, also be produced in the US with Doug Ellin, best known for the HBO series Entourage, working with the Aussie team. The final stages of casting are underway for a UK version of Laid, while Brisbane production house Hoodlum has just inked a deal with US network ABC for a remake of the yet-to-screen Ten series Secrets and Lies with another of the company’s formats, Strange Calls which aired locally on the ABC, receiving a pilot order from the same network.

Liz Watts, producer with Porchlight Films, the local production company behind Laid, says the reason Aussie formats are in such high demand is the people behind them. Looking at the bulk of the formats generating heat, Watts says: “They’re all very different comedies and they’re made by really interesting creatives.”