By all measures, coproductions represent a tiny fraction of the Canadian market. According to the Profile 2021: Economic Report on the Screen-Based Media Production Industry in Canada, the total volume of Canada’s treaty coproduction – inclusive of the Canadian and foreign share of budgets – continued its decline, dropping by 23% in 2020/21 to a 10-year low of $234 million.

The Canadian share of treaty coproduction budgets was $124 million – less than 2% of the $9.09 billion in total film and television production in Canada in 2020/21, similar to the year prior, when the Canadian share of treaty coproduction budgets was $125 million and total film and TV production in Canada was $9.3 billion.

The Profile 2022 report isn’t due out until spring but Telefilm’s 2021-2022 annual report shows total coproduction budgets in that fiscal amounting to $286 million for 53 film and television treaty coproduction projects involving 20 partner countries. That’s up 13 projects from the year prior but the Canadian share was lower, at about $120 million.

“They’re largely irrelevant, and yet there’s a lot of interest,” says Mark Edwards (pictured right), entertainment lawyer and managing partner at Edwards Creative Law in Ottawa. “My guess is that as Canadian proprietary productions have declined – as the industry has shifted more from Cancon, from stuff we produce and own and exploit, to stuff we make for others under service deals – so have gone coproductions.”

Of course, this doesn’t account for the multitude of non-treaty copros and projects with international financing. And there are signs of a shift. Montreal-based Connect3 president Pablo Salzman says “it’s a really good time for coproductions” with streaming services cutting down on the number of global buyouts on their original production slates.

“Cineflix did the show Marcella five years ago with ITV [and] Netflix, and that’s a really strong model for the producers,” he says. “That [deal structure] kind of went away, but we’re seeing in the last year or two that it’s really coming back now. Streamers are looking for ways to share costs and partner with other regional players.”

He points to Connect3’s recent feature film Sugar (pictured left), a copro with B.C.’s Sepia Films and Cancun, Mexico’s Kanan Films, as an example of how streaming deals are changing. The film was presold to German broadcaster ZDF, and Amazon’s Prime Video acquired rights in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with Cineflix Rights holding distribution rights for the remaining territories. “There are really innovative structures that you can put together now from a producer’s point of view that allow you to bring more resources to the table,” says Salzman.

Streamers easing up their grip on world rights was also a hot topic at a MIPCOM session on international drama coproductions last October, where panelists discussed changing models for how producers work with the platforms and a more dynamic flow with rights conversations.

“There’s a lot more flexibility when there was none at the beginning, [it was] global or nothing,” said Matt Brodlie, co-president at L.A.-based Upgrade Productions. “I think that has to do with perhaps a budget squeeze to a certain extent. They don’t need to have the whole world, they don’t need all rights, they could take a window. I think everyone is seeing that a lot more.”

A white paper published last September by MIPCOM and analyst firm Omdia also noted the rise of streamers has resulted in more copro opportunities from other players, such as European public broadcasters from France, Germany and Italy, who formed a coproduction pact in 2018 so they could pool their resources and compete with SVODs.

Shifting market and models

While there may be more opportunity for copros, companies may struggle to find a model that makes everyone happy amid downward pressure from SVODs on their premiums combined with the upward pressure on budgets from inflation and competition in each marketplace.

Budgets are not increasing but expectations are as high, leading to what will likely be different funding models, said Lisa Perrin, managing director of international production at London-based ITV Studios at the MIPCOM panel (pictured right).

“There’s actually outside money coming in, other stakeholders putting money in the pot, private equity money, which can complicate things sometimes in the recruitment process,” she said. “I think that’s going to happen more. I can’t tell you a copro model, because there just isn’t one. It’s very organic.”

A patchwork quilt of funding can make copros – especially high-budget tentpoles – complicated editorially, though, “because often you’re taking multiple notes that aren’t necessarily agreeing with each other,” added Perrin.

Not to mention the administrative expenses on copros, such as multiple sets of lawyers and accountants in respective regions. Broadcasters are also under pressure and streamers are shifting their requirements, with companies like HBO Max making cuts. Meanwhile, more frequent mergers and acquisitions activity is leading to ever-shifting executives and remits as to what platforms are looking for.

Canadian broadcasters have also noticed a “pendulum swing” toward coproductions in the international market, according to Colin Bohm (pictured left), EVP content and corporate strategy at Corus Entertainment.

The broadcaster has had its fair share of coproductions in the past, largely in the kids space through Nelvana, with the Canada/Ireland History epic Vikings as a more recent example of a high-profile drama copro.

Bohm says Corus is looking at copro opportunities where it makes sense, and is currently in conversations with potential U.S. partners to come in early on new productions over the next couple of years.

Copro allure

Complexities aside, copros offer myriad benefits, such as incentives and creative input in multiple countries along with access to a wide berth of talent and a different marketplace.

Edwards says when he started producing in children’s animation more than 20 years ago, virtually everything he did was a copro because “there was demand in Canada for proprietary animation series, so we could get the Canadian broadcast licence. The Canadian broadcast licence was substantial in those days.”

“Coproductions were worth the money, because animation was expensive and you really needed to tap into another source of funding, another broadcaster licence in a major territory, and you needed to produce something that you could sell around the world,” he says.

Close to 60 countries currently have audiovisual coproduction treaties and memorandums of understanding with Canada, according to Telefilm. Treaties currently being negotiated by the Department of Canadian Heritage include: Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, México, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, the U.K. and Northern Ireland.

There are also coproduction incentives, such as the new Canada-France Series Lab – a joint venture between Series Mania Forum, Telefilm Canada, CNC, and the Banff World Media Festival.

Distribution revenue is another factor. Salzman (pictured left) says distributors bring a “huge value” to indie producers who are able to retain rights to their production, adding that they play a significant role in supporting coproduction, whether it’s securing presales from international buyers or co-commission agreements.

Connect3’s next major copro is So Long, Marianne, a love story about Montreal’s Leonard Cohen and Norway’s Marianne Ihlen, with the U.K.’s Buccaneer Media, a fellow Cineflix-backed prodco, and Oslo-based Redpoint Productions. The series is commissioned by Norwegian state broadcaster NRK, with additional broadcast partners to be announced.

Salzman says the project is an example of a copro that is “complicated to put together as a deal,” but has huge cost advantages in terms of the financing that can be brought in by its multiple partners. He says Europe continues to be an advantageous copro partner for Canada thanks to the 30% European content quota for streaming services operating in the continent, which includes international coproductions.  Scandinavia is an exciting partner, he says, noting local broadcasters have built a reputation of being “innovative and bold.”

Canada’s two strongest copro partners have been France and the U.K., according to statistics from Telefilm. Frances-Anne Solomon, CEO of the CaribbeanTales Media Group, is currently in pre-production on In the Black, a Canada/U.K. copro with London-based I Made It Films, which she met through a coproduction workshop held by the CMPA.

Solomon says she was looking for an international partner to widen the casting net for the film, which is a biopic about Denham Jolly, who launched Canada’s first Black-owned radio station more than two decades ago. “We felt that it had resonance in other countries in the Black diaspora, and one of the ways we could expand the audience was… casting with Black or Caribbean actors who were crossover names in England and America,” she says.

However, at the end of the day, financial incentives from any particular region have to come second to what can best serve the creative vision of a project. “You want to look at the natural jurisdictions that are involved, where the creatives are coming from, and then really do your homework and have the team to [successfully] execute it,” says Salzman.

By Kelly Townsend and Victoria Ahearn

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Winter 2022 issue

Lead illustration by Matt Daley, shinypliers.com; MIPCOM 2022 panel on coproductions – image credit: H. THOUROUDE / IMAGE&CO