Sanctuary Becomes First Web-To-TV Hit
The Sci Fi Channel gave an early second-season pickup to Canadian fantasy series "Sanctuary," making it the first TV show based on an online series to accomplish such a feat.
With the popularity of YouTube, the Web has become the perfect breeding ground for TV talent. But crossing that talent (and their product) over to TV has proved tricky.
However major networks are showing interest, including CBS lining up "Sex and the City" creator Darren Star to adapt the hit online series "We Need Girlfriends" as a TV series, and NBC pacting with viral video stars Luke Barats and Joe Bereta. But so far, not much has come of them.
The quick cancellation of "quarterlife," whose made-for-Web episodes were combined into hour-long TV episodes and briefly aired on NBC, took some of the steam out of the web-to-TV movement.
But other networks, such as ABC are redeveloping the online series "In the Motherhood" for its migration to TV, bringing in sister studio ABC Studios and a team of experienced TV writer-producers to adapt it and tapping a mostly new cast.
The Canadian-made "Sanctuary" took a different route.
Much like "quarterlife," which originated with a TV pilot for ABC four years ago, "Sanctuary" — the first TV series to be shot almost entirely on virtual sets in front of greenscreens — stems from a spec script by "Stargate" scribe Damian Kindler written in 2000.
Apple’s announcement of Apple TV in 2006, Apple’s device for playing computer content on HDTVs, prompted Kindler and his "Stargate" collaborators to do "Sanctuary" as the first HD online series that people could watch on their widescreen TVs.
Kindler said there was a wave of euphoria and belief at that time that a giant media revolution was coming.
The Vancouver-based Beedie Group funded their $3 million budget, as well as another half a million in seed money. They then started a company that would serve every aspect of the series, and eight 15-minute episodes were produced.
But "Sanctuary" quickly crashed and burned online.
While the show had 4 million viewers, it was the lack of revenue to recoup the investment that sunk the ship. The production opted for a subscription model that outside of the porn industry has struggled to take hold on the Internet, which is dominated by file-sharing. So while many watched the series, very few paid.
Kindler and his "Stargate" cohorts, director Martin Wood and star Amanda Tapping, poured hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money to keep their company going but ultimately shut it down.
After the failure of Internet distribution, they turned to TV. The Sci Fi Channel, where they had relationships through the two "Stargate" series, agreed to pick up the show for a license fee one-third of what it normally pays for an original scripted series. The script and the cast stayed the same, but the visual effects and other aspects of the project had to be upgraded.
Kindler and crew decided to defer their executive producer fees and work on the 13-episode order for free. With the help of tax credits from the Canadian government, they were able to get the budget down to $1.6 million an episode, still a lot more than what the licensee fee from Sci Fi covered. Without a TV studio behind it, Beedie once again stepped in with financing.
"Sanctuary" then had to be filmed with virtually no prep time and on a tight schedule because it was such a late pickup. Only two writers — Kindler and Sam Egan — penned all 13 episodes, often filming an episode, prepping another and writing a third at the same time.
Kindler said it was an absolute meat grinder. “By the end, it was blood on the walls.”
But the show made its two-hour premiere episode on October 3 and drew an impressive 2.7 million viewers.
But the show still has a long way to go in order to break even on the investment, even with the second-season order at better financial terms and a string of international sales.
Wood said they would do it smarter next time, but only slightly.
"If you don’t go through trial by fire, it wouldn’t be so sweet in the end."
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