Fresh off the premiere of its new Fox drama “Murder in a Small Town,” Jeff Wachtel’s Future Shack Entertainment shingle is ramping up its development slate — next via a first-look pact with Daily Beast chief content officer Joanna Coles. Future Shack and Coles have multiple projects in development, including a take on MSNBC anchor Katy Tur’s memoir “Rough Draft.”
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Wachtel and Coles are also shopping the drama “Base Camp,” which looks at the crowded — and dangerous — queue to get to the top of Mt. Everest. Playwright and screenwriter Anchuli Felicia King (“The Sympathizer,” “Mary & George”) is the scribe behind that project.
Additionally, Future Shack and Coles have two more scripts in the works at 20 th Television. Coles, who was previously chief content officer at Hearst, was the inspiration for the Freeform drama “The Bold Type,” which she also executive produced. “She’s a phenomenal producer, but primarily a magazine editor and tastemaker,” Wachtel said of what drew him to make a producing deal with Coles. “On any given night, you’ll see her on CNN to talk about subjects like the royal family. I’m always trying to find people who are a little bit ahead of the curve, or people who might be introduced to a different genre.”
In working with Coles, Wachtel compares it to his experience working with other producers who he helped nurture during his earlier stints at USA Network, Universal Content Prods. and NBCUniversal International Studios. That includes Matt Nix (“Burn Notice”), Sam Esmail (“Mr. Robot”) and Aaron Korsch (“Suits”).
“I’ve never met anyone with Jeff’s unique skill set,” Coles said. “He’s led by his creative instincts while having terrific business savvy – his success speaks for itself. He’s incredibly driven and on a personal level, he’s great fun to work with.”
In the case of “Rough Draft,” Wachtel said he and Coles were drawn to Tur’s deeply personal story. The book chronicles Tur’s relationship with her parent Zoey Tur, who almost single-handedly created helicopter journalism in Los Angeles (becoming famous via coverage from the sky of the L.A. civil unrest of 1992 — including live coverage of the beating of Reginald Denny — and of the O.J. Simpson slow-speed Bronco chase). Katy and Zoey Tur (who transitioned in the 2000s) have had a tumultuous relationship, which Katy detailed in her book.
The series would cover the story of Katy Tur’s family in addition to the backdrop of Los Angeles in the 1990s. Wachtel compared it a bit to how “Winning Time” did the same thing with the L.A. Lakers. “In ‘Winning Time’ in that there’s a wonderful personal story, and then there’s this other big story, and it’s the setting of a decade,” Wachtel said. “This is the 90s of LA. This is about how local news became reality TV set against the Malibu fires, Sean and Madonna, the riots, O.J. Simpson.”
Meanwhile, Wachtel describes “Base Camp” as “‘White Lotus’ meets ‘Into Thin Air.'” “It’s rich people behaving badly, and some of them fall off the cliff. There are real stakes here. It’s also a high-end soap. As dangerous as that journey is, it’s become a kind of a cry for tech billionaires,” he said. “And there are frozen bodies up there. So, there’s an element of the grotesque here… We saw that notion of combining the impossible journey with the kind of quotidian day-to-day. It’s like you’re waiting to check out at Trader Joe’s, to get up to the top.”
Beyond the pact with Coles, Wachtel and Future Shack have several other projects in the works, including the previously announced “Cleat Cute,” from athletes Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe and their production banner, A Touch More . “Cleat Cute” is a contemporary queer romance that follows a young soccer player as she juggles being the new rookie, her goals of making the national team, and a budding romance with her team captain.
Also, “The Long Fall,” from writer Walter Mosley (“Devil in a Blue Dress,” “The Last Days of Ptolemey Grey”) is mystery about a former boxer-turned-private detective. And “Grand Stand-In,” from writer/producer Gretchen Enders, is based on a Kevin Wilson short story about a woman who takes a job as a faux grandparent. There’s “Ender’s Game” with Gigi Pritzker’s Madison Wells and a limited series adaptation of Ukraine president Vlodymyr Zelenskyy press secretary Iuliia Mendel’s memoir “The Fight of Our Lives.”
All of the above projects fall more under Future Shack’s desire to produce high-end content for streamers and find intellectual property to develop with talented producers. But as a third prong of his strategy for the company, Wachtel has also been focused on coming up with unique business models to produce more economical productions that would make sense for certain platforms.
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That includes “Murder in a Small Town,” a murder mystery starring Kristin Kreuk as a librarian who falls in love with a detective played by Rossif Sutherland. The show is produced and set in Canada, where that country’s broadcaster Global is a partner in the show in addition to Fox in the U.S.
“Murder in a Small Town” has performed solidly so far for Fox, so much so that the network has opted to keep the show in the Tuesday 8 p.m. ET timeslot, instead of shifting it to 9 p.m. as originally planned.
“Murder in a Small Town” began as a two-hour movie from a Canadian producer, but Future Shack’s Frances Manfredi (who spearheads distribution and content strategy) took the idea to Fox — which was interested in becoming a co-producer if it became a series.
“Like what I tried to do at USA, it’s a very straightforward crime mystery case of the week, ‘Columbo’ on the coast,” Wachtel said. “Rossif Sutherland and Kristen Kreuk have found some real chemistry. And I think it elevates it. And it’s gorgeous. Dead body, beautiful location. And then, there’s this kind of unexpected, grown up storyline in the middle of it.”
When it comes to this economic production model, Wachtel said he’s focused on English-language shows geared toward the UK, Canada and Australia. And he’s looking at the kind of blue sky shows that worked for him back at USA Network: “High quality, very accessible, long running series at a price point that most people are surprised about,” he said. The first season of “Suits,” for example, was just over $2 million an episode, while “Mr. Robot” started at under $3 million a seg.
“If we do have a value as a company, it’s somehow navigating this new and emerging economic trend, financial model, where people are more cost conscious,” he said.
Next up, Future Shack is behind The CW’s midseason drama “Good Cop/Bad Cop,” which was filmed in Australia and is a project that besides CW was also financed by Roku, Australia’s Stan and distributed internationally by ITV.
“So, CW, Roku, Stan, and then we went to ITV, who gave us a guarantee if they could be involved as a studio,” Wachtel said. “We made it for under $3 million an episode. We were very lucky to get Leighton Meester as the lead. She’s fantastic person and an incredible actress and incredibly funny. This one is a comedy with dead bodies. It’s written by John Quaintance, and it’s light and fun.”
Wachtel said he’s talking to Fox about other projects under this model, and he’s bullish on outlets like TNT that are also looking to get back into the original series business under a reduced budget model. “It’s become a really big part of our business strategy as networks have emerged that are existentially cost conscious,” he said. “They don’t have Netflix money. So, taking that as a strategic agenda and then marrying it to creative material that is a little special and delivers a little more than you might have anticipated — even at this lower cost, and with international partners… there’s some real opportunity there.”
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