North American scripted chief Jinny Howe talks building projects from within and unveils ice skating romntic drama
Netflix is looking to “manifest its own destiny” by expanding its in-house studio capabilities in a bid to be “more aggressive” with key IP and emerging talent.
Jinny Howe became head of scripted for the US and Canada in August after Peter Friedlander left for Amazon and has been shifting the way projects are being developed in-house.
During a wide-reaching keynote at the Banff World Media Festival, Howe said she had “reorganised” teams to allow shows to be developed within Netflix and ensure the streamer is “being as aggressive in places that we need to be”.
She added: “It provides the opportunity to build from the ground floor projects that we aren’t seeing coming from the market place, it gives us little more hustle in that way.
“We were trying to differentiate our approaches to manifest our own destiny, to realise the most diverse and varied slate possible. So rather than being reactive to projects coming in packaged from the marketplace, we were looking to think about how to get more competitive with key IP and emerging talent.”
Howe said the in-house push had been “complimentary” to buying from third-party producers and was “symbiotic” for creators.
“It is a very different mindset and it has created more opportunity for folks - on the studio side, things don’t have to be so fully baked, they can come in at the studio phase and then be built to be geared towards Netflix.”
Skating to the puck
Howe used her keynote to confirm a third season of Four Seasons, which will join an upcoming slate that includes an adaptation of Little House on the Prairie, East of Eden and Kennedy, the latter about the US political family.
She also revealed the streamer is moving into ice hockey-based romance following the success of Heated Rivalry, with a greenlight handed out for Icebreaker, based on Hannah Grace’s viral hockey romance novel of the same name.
The show follows the relationship between a competitive figure skater training for the Olympics who is forced to share the rink with a hockey player who is determined to go pro. Amanda Lasher (Gossip Girl) is showrunner and writes with Jade Bartlett (Road House), with Unwell Productions also attached.
Howe also touched on microdrama - “not something my team is focused on” - and the potential of higher-episode seasons at Netflix, following the success of HBO Max’s The Pitt, which she described as a “tremendous show”.
The former John Wells Productions exec - which was behind ER - said she was happy to consider more episodes on scripted series if the creative could support it and said Netflix - whose content spend touches around $20bn annually - is maintaining volume and focused on “viewing relative to cost”.
Howe joined Netflix in 2018, shortly after the streamer had struck rich deals with showrunners Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, and she added that the strategy on creator deals had not changed.
“We’ve always been very intentional with those deals,” she said. “Right now, we’re very creator-focused, it feels like we’re in a creator economy and we’re looking to engage special voices who can deliver versions of shows that no one else can. That has always been at the core of [our strategy], it feels like we have shifted in that direction.”
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