The trend of demand for mainstream TV series and growth in Fremantles film business, thanks to the likes of Luca Guadagninos Queer, starring Daniel Craig, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Pablo Larrans Maria starring Angelina Jolie were among the key topics of debate as executives fromthe production giantin Madridon Wednesday on the second day of the fourth edition ofIberseries Platino Industria.

Seb Shorr, CCOO, global drama at Fremantle U.K., Olivia Sleiter, head of production, global drama at Fremantle Italy, and Manuel Mart, head of scripted development at Fremantle Mxico appeared during a spotlight panel session. We have a good amount, I think now its 17, Sleiter said about Fremantles growing film business. Its film for cinemas and films for TV as well. Among others, she mentioned that Element Pictures, in which the firm owns a majority stake, has worked with Yorgos Lanthimos and is now shooting his next movie.

Shorr told the audience: While weve always done a bit of film, really the last few years, we very much want that to be a really important part of our portfolio and a major part of our business.

He also addressed the current difficulties in the sector. The market has been challenged and is challenged, and weve had, almost in every territory, the sort of perfect storm of production costs continue to go up, broadcasters are struggling and not putting what they would invest up, he explained. It has become more challenging to put the financing together on the series. Thats sort of a structural financing challenge that were seeing. At the same time, a lot of the buyers move towards what we would call mainstream, or a push for mainstream, mainstream, mainstream, and away a little bit from some of the prestige genres that, particularly the streamers, have been chasing in the last few years.

Mart highlighted though that producers and networks can strive for mainstream content without having to dumb things down across the board but instead add layers to productions.

Shorr also shared what that means for Fremantle and other companies. Our challenge, and the challenge for all of the producers, is to sit there and find the right way to respond to that need from the market, but also to respond to the challenging financing scenarios to put together the shows that can work for broadcasters, while they also can make money. He concluded: Broadcasters are all trying to cut their budgets, almost every broadcaster in every territory wants to spend less. That opens the opportunity back to co-production in a way that has not really existed so much in the last few years. And I think that is going to be continuing to be the big trend.

Martin Freeman series The Responder is a terrific show that were very proud of but also an interesting case, Shorr offered. It worked on the basis of quite a good U.S. sale that we had. However, things would likely look different if the show was being produced now. If we were making The Responder again, we would probably be looking at a lower cost, because we do not see the same market for it internationally, just because the way the market has gone, he explained. We greenlit that ourselves just out of the BBC and then waited for the U.S. sale. But I dont think we would do that now because of the challenges in the market.

The Fremantle team also mentioned Italian series Costiera about a half-Italianex-marine who returns tothe land of his childhood and takes up problem-solving in one of the most luxurious hotels in the world. This is the show that we made for Amazon in Italy, which was I think the first time Amazon in Italy had done a co-production model, Shorr said. They just took Italy, France and Spain. And we retained the rest of the rights and then it around the world.

But Amazon ended up liking it so much that it ended up taking more territories. Its a very mainstream show, Shorr said. Its sold really well. And interestingly, on that one, weve actually sold a lot of the territories to Amazon that they didnt take initially because Amazon was so excited about the show.

What are the Fremantle execs looking for in the future? Im excited about the market being better in a year or two, Shorr said.

And Sleiter shared this on Fremantles reaction to the rise of artificial intelligence. On AI, we have now made some specific working groups because we dont want to suffer AI. We want to take advantage of what you can offer, she explained. Of course, [we will be] always taking into consideration what our talents want. We need to protect them as well. But of course, its something were really looking at. We will have some focus groups, and we will try as much as possible to share all the experiments we will start doing, and we will share [insights] with all the departments and all our labels.

After all, AI is not something for experts only, she concluded. Its something that we can all take advantage of. And this is something we need to navigate properly.