Robocop deal together

‘Robocop is still very much on our mind,’ says Skyvision Entertainment vice-president Kevin Gillis, following word Jan. 5 that the syndicated series has been axed after its first season by Los Angeles-based distributor Rysher Entertainment.

No renewal

In September, when production on the 21-episode, $36.5 million series came to a halt in Toronto, a weekly payroll of $800,000 for an average of 300 people was at stake. Skyvision had hoped to resume shooting in early October, but could not get a renewal commitment from Rysher.

Gillis says one scenario for resurrecting the show is to produce the series through a combination of European sales, merchandising deals and reduced licence fees in the u.s. Another option is to amalgamate these options with an Australian coproduction deal.

Skyvision is in early stages of discussion on a potential Canadian-Australian coproduction deal for season two. A key issue for Skyvision is keeping as much production as possible at home. For now, there are no indications of where, and if, season two would shoot.

‘Jigsaw puzzle’

‘It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces don’t fit,’ says Gillis, referring to the fact that international interest in the series is strong, with sales to 129 countries, except in the States.

Efforts to get Robocop back on track will likely involve a major budget cut. ‘We don’t want to compromise quality, but realistically we are going to have to take a hard look at where we are spending our money. Most of the shows that are successful now, except for Lonesome Dove, are less than us$1 million,’ Gillis says.

Amortizing expenses

Amortizing certain expenses – mostly hard costs incurred during the series’ start-up – will be included in Skyvision’s renewal strategy.

Numbers from the November sweeps played a key role in Rysher’s decision to cancel the show.

National ratings for Robocop in December ranged from 3.0 to 3.6; it needed to hit the 4.0 mark to make the grade.

Times are tough in general for the action-hour market – a chief concern for Skyvision which is about to go into preproduction on a new action series, f/x.

‘Action hours across the board in the States are having a hard time right now,’ Gillis says, ‘and Rysher has informed us that, of the 16 shows out there now in action hours, the industry is looking for at least eight to disappear.’

Of the 16 action shows in syndication this winter (including Deep Space Nine, Babylon and Thunder in Paradise), Robocop ranked number five, up from eighth place in September. Gillis suspects the increase was ‘due more to the fact that some (competing) shows are diminishing so therefore Robocop looked better.’

Although Skyvision’s relationship with Rysher (which is distributing f/x) is not directly affected, Gillis says the Robocop experience will have some impact on f/x both in budget – which should sit somewhere around the $1 million-per-episode point (cut from $1.5 million at the time the series was announced last April) – and in distribution.

‘Rysher is keenly looking to how we may mount the production; f/x may go network as a weekly series rather than syndication. That’s one of the possibilities right now,’ he says.

Preproduction on f/x is expected to begin in Toronto in late March.