Globo Celebrates 100 With Anonymous Content, BBC, Fox, Leshem Deals

CANNES, France – “The future began 100 years ago,” read a three-minute segment shown Sunday evening during a Globo Showcase Cocktail on Mipcom, detailing the Brazilian communications giant’s evolution from newspaper, launched in 1925, to radio and Rede Globo TV network.

The welter of international partnerships and deals with Globo that were confirmed on stage at the Cannes Carlton Hotel on Sunday by Angela Colla, Globo Head of International Business and Co-productions, did much to suggest that for Globo the future is beginning anew.

Brazil is a country as big as a continent. Brazil’s struggle this century has been to reach the rest of the world and Globo’s challenge is to consolidate the broadening of its portfolio from telenovelas – while ensuring they continue to travel – to other forms of entertainment and business models, and join the global mainstream.

One way to achieve this is format deals. “This year was crucial for our consolidation in format sales,” Colla said in Cannes.

In one unannounced pact, Globoplay has struck a deal with Anonymous Content for a U.S. version of “The Others,” Colla announced. Created by Lucas Paraizo (“Under Pressure”) and which maps the current build-up of intolerance, he says Variety‘The Others’ is set in a gated community on the outskirts of Rio, where a scuffle between two teenagers escalates into a bloody confrontation between their parents. The format has already been sold to Germany (ndF) and Greece (produced by Primavisione, broadcast by Alpha).

In further deals unveiled by Colla, in partnership with Turkey’s Ay Yapim, Globo has seen the revenge saga ‘Leyla’, the Turkish adaptation of the telenovela phenomenon ‘Brazil Avenue’, go global and sold in more than twenty countries to date.

Globo has sold the format for ‘All the Flowers’, about a visually impaired perfumer’s struggle for freedom and love, to the Greek Primavisione and Alpha. It has also signed a format deal with Portugal’s SIC broadcast network for ‘Pages of Life’, a 2006 modern classic telenovela from Manoel Carlos.

Globo’s Ron Leshem, Fox, BBC Studios co-productions

Another way to join the global conversation: international co-production with key creatives and A-list companies. Just ahead of the Showcase, it was announced through his prodco label Crossing Oceans that Ron Leshem, creator of the original ‘Euphoria’, will join forces with Koby Gal Raday and Ilda Santiago’s Janeiro Studios and Globoplay, the leading Brazilian streaming platform, to produce ‘Paranoia’.

To be co-developed by Leshem and Claudia Jouvin, who broke through this summer as head writer of the Globoplay hit “Perfect Days,” “Paranoia” was described as Variety by the producers like “’Black Swan’ and ‘Whiplash’ blended with the feel-good vibes and payoffs of the ‘Queen’s Gambit’ and the generation-defining impact of ‘Euphoria.’”

Unveiled on Saturday, Globo and Fox Entertainment Studios – the world’s largest producer of Christmas films – announced they will be working together to develop and produce an original English-language Christmas film set and filmed in Brazil. With the aim of ensuring cultural authenticity, Globo will provide creative guidance to accurately represent Brazilian culture and traditions, including the country’s unique Christmas celebration, which takes place during the Brazilian summer.

Late last week, BBC Studios and Brazil’s Globo signed a groundbreaking first co-production deal for a documentary series that will “transport audiences to the heart of Brazil’s vast Amazon rainforest.” The series, details of which are being kept under wraps, will be produced by BBC Studios Specialist Factual Productions and Globo, with a story that is native to Brazil,” said Janet Brown, President of Global Content Sales at BBC Studios. Variety.

Alex Medeiros, Globoplay Director of Drama, Documentaries and Films, elaborated on other co-production arrangements during the Showcase: with Telemundo Studios, a first title to be announced soon; with Beta Film, announced last year at Mipcom; with Fremantle in the series ‘Crime Inc’ and with Gaumont USA in ‘Deluxe’, about the rise and fall of Brazilian fashion icon Eliana Tranchesi, which goes into production this week.

New Globo shows catch fire

In direct sales, Globo has licensed both ‘All the Flowers’ and ‘Xuxa, the Documentary’, from Brazil’s biggest pop star, to Argentina’s top network Telefe.

The trailer shown at the Showcase, Globoplay’s latest release, series “Perfect Days” – a stylish but quickly disturbing kidnapping thriller chosen by Variety among the must-see TV titles for Mipcom – has become the most watched original series on Globoplay of any nationality since its premiere in the summer, Colla announced, calling the Anonymous Content Brazil production “an exciting series that continues to have an impact on me” and that “shows another side of our audiovisual work.”

A second Mipcom title, ‘Anything Goes’, a smooth, fast-paced remake of one of Brazil’s biggest 1980s telenovela hits, reached a 56% audience share at the time of the arch-enemy’s assassination, while the production is Globo’s highest-grossing primetime telenovela in Brazil, with 16 brands including BYD, Corona, Uber, Amazon, Paramount and L’Oréal, participating in 76 branded content promotions.

“We are storytellers, and our greatest triumph is our commitment to quality and representing the best of our people – happiness, hard work, creativity, strength and optimism, among other core values,” Colla said at the Mipcom Showcase.

“We always tell stories responsibly, stories that move and connect with all kinds of audiences,” she added. “And diversity is not just in the content or genres, such as telenovelas, series or documentaries, but also in the business models, including finished content, scripted formats, unscripted formats and co-productions.”

There’s more to come.