EXCLUSIVE: Guy Ritchie’s Young Sherlock has wrapped, Get Millie Black is on air, and with Ruth Wilson-starrer The Woman In The Wall and One Night with Jodie Whittaker already under its belt, Simon Maxwell’s Motive Pictures has a head of steam.
Next up, Maxwell tells Deadline, his Fifth Season-backed label will take original projects developed with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Alison Brie and Whittaker to market, as well as a Philip K. Dick adaptation from the writers behind Humans. Maxwell also reveals that Motive is working with Beau Willimon (Andor) and Jordan Tapis (Severance) through their Westward Productions banner, with scripted and documentary projects in the offing.
For a UK-based drama producer looking to tap into U.S. finance and partnerships, having HBO (Get Millie Black), Prime Video (Young Sherlock) and Showtime (The Woman In The Wall) as partners on your first shows – and the Australia/New Zealand arm of Paramount+ (One Night) on the other – feels like proof of concept. The drama sands are shifting, however, and UK producers are finding U.S. funding thinner on the ground.
Against that backdrop, Maxwell unpacks the transatlantic story so far and the upcoming plans for Motive Pictures. He also gets into the weeds of the international drama biz.
Reason And Motive
Formerly Head of International Drama at Channel 4, Maxwell worked up various international co-productions in that role, shepherding projects including Humans, which aired on AMC in the U.S.
Motive was set up in 2019 as a high-end drama specialist for “author-driven projects that could be internationally co-financed” and “very much thinking about the UK and the U.S. as independent but symbiotic markets.” Fifth Season (then Endeavor Content) under co-CEO Chris Rice got behind the plan, backing the drama prodco.
A green light followed for Get Millie Black, Booker Prize-winning scribe Marlon James’ first TV work. It follows Millie-Jean Black (Tamara Lawrance), an ex-Scotland Yard detective who returns to Jamaica where she ends up working a missing persons case that threatens to tear her world apart.
It bowed on HBO in the U.S. before launching on Channel 4 in the UK, fitting the transatlantic mold.
“Marlon has a unique perspective on the country of his birth and upbringing in Jamaica,” Maxwell says about the series. “The story that we’re telling explores, in parallel to its compelling criminal investigation, the post-Colonial landscape between Jamaica and the UK. It explores the rights of the LGBTQ and Trans community in Jamaica, and explores abuses of power and trauma. In Marlon’s hands, there is a unique story to be told that has real emotional heft.”
In a risk-averse market, buyers gravitate to ideas based on pre-existing IP, but Motive is playing on a longer game with its focus on original ideas. “In a very busy and some might say saturated market, it’s the strength of the authorship that will ultimately attract commissions and financing,” Maxwell says. He also acknowledges that original concepts can “take longer to gain traction.”
“The majority of our slate is original work. We always seek out writers who have bold, singular voices. The absolute sweet spot for us is where the stories they’re telling have a deeply personal dimension and where the strength and potency of that story is enough to cut through.”
Marlon James & Simon Maxwell on the set of ‘Get Millie Black’
Motive
Guy Ritchie & Young Sherlock
One IP-based project, however, is Prime Video’s Young Sherlock. The adaptation of Andy Lane’s book series was produced out of Cardiff, Wales, with shoots in Oxfordshire, England, and Andalusia, Spain. The show follows the world-famous sleuth in his formative years.
“You always have to find the balance, to walk the line between giving audiences and fans of Sherlockian law what they want, but with a healthy amount of exciting reinvention,” says Maxwell. “We’ve certainly got that in abundance.”
The young Holmes is played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin and other cast includes Dónal Finn as Moriarty. “It’s a deeply personal story for Sherlock. The ‘Young’ of the title really allows us to explore him in a completely different way, as he’s becoming a man and starting to form the deductive powers that will make him such an icon.”
Guy Ritchie directs and executive produces. Matthew Parkhill is writer and showrunner, with Motive producing alongside Inspirational Entertainment. Maxwell credits Ritchie as “one of the most dynamic and inventive filmmakers in the world.” He promises Young Sherlock “is absolutely vintage Guy Ritchie.”
Is it a franchise in the making? “There’s a huge amount of promise and I would say we’re all hoping that this will be the start of a long and very rewarding journey.”
New Sci-Fi, Crime & Doc Series
Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent are penning The Variable Man, based on the 1950s Philip K. Dick novella. With characteristic prescience, Dick wrote about a cold war during which sides calculate their chances of winning with advanced tech. Motive has partnered with Electric Shepherd, the banner that stewards adaptations of Dick’s work and is run by his daughter Isa Dick Hackett.
The grounded sci-fi project is set up with a UK broadcaster and is an example of a show that is ripe for international co-financing, Maxwell says. “When you’ve got Sam and John doing what they did so brilliantly with Humans and exploring the modern world through a genre lens, it is something that can absolutely attract broadcasters in the U.S.”
Motive is also working up TV series with actors Brie (Glow), Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths) and Whittaker (Doctor Who). “We’re developing shows with all of those stars and if you build projects in the right way, you can generate enough excitement to attract the commissions and co-finance.”
Jean-Baptiste is attached to star in Magpie. She wrote the script for the show, which is a “very personal and character-driven crime epic set between L.A. and London.”
“We don’t have a crystal ball – nothing is guaranteed – but what we are doing is crafting bespoke projects with singular talent. That’s a recipe we’ve found fruitful in terms of getting broadcasters to the table,” Maxwell says.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste at the Deadline Contenders Film: Los Angeles at the Directors Guild of America on November 16, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
The Brie project is called Long White Cloud and is an original crime series set in New Zealand.
With Willimon and Tapis’ Westwood Prods, Motive is developing both international scripted and a documentary series, which would mark a move into factual. Details are under wraps, but the starting point, Maxwell says, is that the two labels are kindred spirits. “We look at the market in complementary ways… the need for originality, authorship and for stories that can be conversation starters.”
A New Lens On U.S. Funding
Tapping into U.S. financing has underpinned Motive’s projects, but that has become harder for UK producers of late and Maxwell acknowledges the changing picture.
“It’s undoubtedly been a real boom time for producers, and particularly for the co-production market, but the laws of market physics say that what expands must contract,” he says.
“For me, the optimistic outlook is that there is still an abundance of world class and very gifted storytellers in this country, and there are still very hungry audiences who want new content on their platforms. We just have to box clever and, increasingly so, be entrepreneurial in how we get our shows financed.”
The UK and international drama biz needs to be reconfigured so that it accommodates both big-ticket international series and domestically financed local shows, he adds. One solution would be to bolster the UK tax credit to allow British producers to make splashy homegrown fare that is not contingent on U.S. money.
“It will require some new models coming into place,” he says. “Essentially, we need to get away from a place where the majority of UK commissions are reliant on U.S. commissioners. We need to bifurcate and split the international co-financed projects and the domestically financeable projects. It’s up to us as an industry to figure out how to do that.”
U.S. buyers are definitely casting a more discerning eye over UK-originated drama, but there is still scope for Brits and Americans to join forces. “The transatlantic opportunities are still there,” Maxwell says. “There is a diminished appetite among U.S. broadcasters for UK content, but for the right project, for something with enough originality and strength of authorship and exciting elements, those shows are still financeable.”
Realism Meets Optimism
Maxwell has been upfront about industry challenges but is keen to accentuate the positive as his Deadline interview draws to a close.
“There are so many brilliant screenwriters and storytellers out there with fresh stories to tell – you just have to hunt them out. It’s always a puzzle-box of how you go from talking about an idea to getting enough people on board to bring it to fruition, but that’s a great challenge.
“Is the idea you’ve got worth spending 10 years pushing up 10 multiple hills? If the answer is ‘no’ you should probably find something else to be on your slate. If the answer is ‘yes’, then it motivates you to push on and find people who will be intrigued and will come on board.”
