Alon Aranya: Making Hit Shows for a Global Audience | FilmInk

In recent years, producer Alon Aranya has been a driving force behind some of the biggest global hits to come out of both Hollywood and international TV.

As well as producing Showtime’s acclaimed legal drama Your Honor, starring Bryan Cranston, which became that cable network’s most-watched series to date, Aranya also oversaw Apple’s Emmy-winning, globally successful series Tehran, the streamer’s first non-English-language series.

Throughout his impressive career, Aranya has set up close to 50 scripted shows at US and international networks and studios.

His extensive CV also includes shows Red Widow (based on the Dutch format Penoza), Betrayal (based on the Dutch format Overspel), and Hostages (based on the Israeli format Bnei Aruba), which he also co-wrote, for CBS.

Currently, Aranya, who produces and finances international dramas via his company Paper Plane Productions, has four shows on the air including Your Honor, Tehran, The Vanishing Triangle, a Sundance Now Original Irish Crime Series, and Best Seller Boy, a Dutch dramedy based on the bestseller by Mano Bouzamur, a co-production of the Dutch NPO and CBS Studios International.

Aranya is also in development on a slate of shows for the international market, which include Australian series, as well as productions in the US, Germany, Ireland, France, Holland, India, and several other countries.

At Screen Producers Australia’s Screen Forever 2024 conference, Aranya shared his tips for Australian creators, and his optimistic thoughts on the current landscape.

Among many of your incredible achievements, Tehran was the first non-English language series produced for Apple TV. What have you learned from the success of Tehran?

“Tehran was made out of Israel, and the first season was made for less than half a million dollars an episode. And it was made with 50% of the budget coming from the outside. And then, after we made it, it sold to Apple. At the time, in 2020, it was the biggest deal ever for a non-English speaking show, on a global streamer. And in fact, it was Apple’s first international show.

“That was my first international show that we developed and produced. And, we thought, ‘this is a great idea. We know how to develop it’, and we can make something out of this, and it could be a really interesting case study for us on how to proceed forward with our international agenda. And of course, when you make a show, you hope certain things will happen, but you just don’t know that they’re going to happen on this level. And so, I think it opened our eyes and the whole world’s eyes to what’s possible for shows that are not English-speaking, too.

“I think what happened after Tehran is that Tehran opened up this big appetite that landed exactly at the same time of Covid. And that’s when the streamers started to go global, the ones that weren’t there yet. And the streamers rushed shows to try to meet the demand of subscriptions that might come with Covid. And, a lot of non-English speaking shows were produced, but they were rushed through the process.

“I think the result of it, just generally speaking, with a few exceptions, was not good. There were not great shows, they were not selling. And, there was just money left on the table. And, so, now three, four years later, there’s a suggestion in the marketplace that non-English speaking shows are no longer a thing. We’re back to English speaking. It didn’t work out. So, you can imagine that the people who made Tehran are a little baffled by this notion because anybody that’s saying that non-English speaking shows are not great in the marketplace, it’s because they didn’t make good non-English speaking shows.

“Tehran is a show that’s 50% in Farsi. Forget about non-English, try financing that (laughs)! So, if a show like that could impact globally, the way Tehran did, then a lot of other shows can do that. But they have to be made on a premium level that can break through. That’s the bottom line. And, in our business, I just hear too many people speak about trends, they switch the trend as soon as they make another mediocre show and then another trend. And meanwhile, we’re just sitting there and going, ‘isn’t our job to make a great show? What happened to that trend?’ So, I learned that at the end of the day, we don’t have to listen to the noise so much, but really do our work. It’s not that we’re not connected to the marketplace. We know what the marketplace is, but we also know what a good show is, and we’re gonna continue making non-English speaking shows together with English speaking shows, because as long as we’re making a good show, it will sell and it will go global.”

It seems like the landscape and appetite of buyers, particularly for global series, is constantly changing every year. What are your thoughts on the marketplace in 2024? 

“Of course, there are trends and things like that. If you look at a snapshot of this year, I think a lot of distributors will prefer putting their money in English-speaking shows. That said, we’re in the process of financing a few non-English speaking shows. So, again, I have to stress that our job as producers and writers is to put up the best game we have and to put up a show that’s a premium level show, which is so hard to achieve, because it takes a long time to develop these kinds of things. And, it’s not a rushed process. And as long as we do that, I think there’s always gonna be a marketplace for good shows.

“I’ll give you an example about trends. We have a show called Your Honor. I made the deal for Your Honor and I put it all together about four or five years before it actually aired. And, it became the most-viewed show ever on Showtime for its first season, which is incredible. But none of this could have been predicted four or five years before as a trend. What kind of a trend does Your Honor have? All of a sudden, there’s a trend with judges or with a father and son? It’s not a trend. It’s a great show, and people showed up. So, within that, sometimes they’re looking for more darker stuff in certain years because the world is dark, then we’re looking for lighter stuff. And of course, those are very natural things. But overall, believe me, the one thing I learned from all of this is, keep your eye on the ball. And the ball is, make a great show and don’t look right and don’t look left so much. Make the great show that you wanna make. And it will actually set a trend like Tehran did. Better to set the trend than follow it, I think.”

Your Honor was adapted from an international format into a US series. What was it about Your Honor that made you think it would translate so well? 

“Well, Your Honor is based on an Israeli format, Kvodo [below]. I actually got involved in the original and adapting it to the US when it was still in development in Israel. So, technically it was a format because it was in development at a broadcaster in Israel. But I read a few scripts and it blew my head, it was so great. And, so the process of adapting it started while it was in development in Israel. It’s just an interesting anecdote because it points to how strong the concept is, and that you don’t need a fully produced format to actually adapt it. And, I remember after reading a few scripts in Israel, I went back to the States and I thought, ‘I don’t have anything to show’.

“So, I wrote up a couple pages of a pitch and literally just pitched it that way. And, it was like a five, 10-minute pitch, that’s all. And it was so strong, that everybody came on board very quickly. A lot of these great people that, normally it takes months and years to chase them down to a project, after hearing the five minutes, they’re like, ‘I’m in’. So, Your Honor for me was a global story that was created in Israel. It had Israeli characters, it was set in Israeli towns, it was an Israeli show, but if you erase the names of the characters and the locations, you could probably put any locations you wanted in any nation, because there is no country that doesn’t have a judge, or doesn’t have a father, or doesn’t have a son, or doesn’t have a hit and run, or doesn’t have a mobster…

“So, these are components that you can find anywhere on the planet. And that’s why the show, I think, became so successful globally, not only because of the Showtime version and the original format, but as you can see, it was adapted like eight times. So, it really speaks to the power of the concept. And, so for me, I could have found that show in France, but it happened to be developed by a great writer, Shlomo Moshiah in Israel. And lucky for me, when I read it, I thought, ‘man, this is the Israeli version of The Night Of’. And that’s why Peter Moffat was sort of one of the first ideas to write this, having created the original The Night Of, Criminal Justice.

“And, it’s one of those lucky situations where you’re like, ‘who do you want to write this?’ And I was like, ‘well, I think Peter Moffat could be great’, and next thing we know, Peter Moffat is attached. So, it was one of those really rare cases where you identify something and it’s so clear, and its short version of an elevator pitch that it attracts people immediately. And I think that’s what is great about it. It really could have been a show from anywhere, and it became a show from everywhere, in fact.”

As a producer, you’re looking for shows that are going to translate globally, that are strong enough that they will have appeal across the world? 

“That’s right. And, with formats, of course, when you’re adapting stuff, it’s interesting because we do both, we adapt stuff in different countries, and we also make originals. And those are two different targets. They are different situations. And when we adapt something, we’re actually looking for something really global, something that’s not so tied down to one country that you couldn’t see how it could be developed in a different country, but rather something like Your Honor that can really easily be adapted. But when we make an original, like if we’re making an original Israeli show or any other original, we’re actually trying to make something that is a singular in that territory. And maybe you could adapt it, but that’s not the first purpose of it. The purpose is to really make a singular show like Tehran that maybe could be adapted somewhere in the world, theoretically, but it’s not your immediate go-to show to adapt, because it’s so powerful as an original. And I think that’s an example of shows that we would make in different territories as original shows, that they will be singular in a sense that no, you actually can’t get these shows from anywhere else, just from the country we made it in. So, I think it’s two different sort of ways of making shows and the way we think about them are a little different.”

So, for original series, the aim is very much that they stand on their own feet. 

“Yeah. I mean, look at the stuff that historically was bought out of Israel, for example. And it’s true for all the countries, but, Tehran, of course, Shtisel, these are singular Israeli shows. You can’t get these shows from the United States or from the UK or from Italy. And I like that. I like that a lot as a way of thinking about shows, and same thing for Australia. My hope in Australia is to make a singular Australian show that when buyers will look at it on the one end, they’ll love it because it’s universal. On the other end, they’ll go, ‘I can’t make that show immediately somewhere else. That’s really Australian’, the nature of it and the DNA of it.

“And, it’s not something that I would in two minutes go and make in the UK, or something like that. I think it’s this balance between finding something that feels very Australian on the one end, but also finding a concept that can go global. And it’s not always possible. Sometimes, the two are in cahoots with each other, but we’re looking for that middle ground. So Australian viewers, when they watch a show that hopefully we would make here with Australian partners, they would find themselves completely at home, and actually hopefully with some kind of new experience around it, and then it would go global. And that’s exactly what happened to Tehran, by the way, when it aired in Israel. Israelis just flocked to it immediately. They loved it. And also, they pointed out that it was a new experience for them. They’ve never seen a show with a pace like that in Israel, because there was never money really to produce shows that, you know, go so fast.

“So, for Israelis, it was amazing and a new experience in watching Israeli content. That would be my hope anywhere that I could make a show in Australia; people would tell me, ‘We’ve never seen something like this really. There were things that are similar, but not anything like this’. And yet it would go global.”

What types of projects are you looking for from Australian producers?

“Well, like anywhere, we meet a lot of writers here and a lot of producers and the broadcasters too. And so naturally there’s stuff that we generate from here, but also as a company that wants to be active on the ground here, we’re bringing our own projects into the territory. And those are not Australian projects. They were created somewhere else, but as they were developed and created or produced somewhere else, the thought was, ‘wow, this could be a really great Australian show’. So sometimes the source material might not be from Australia in its original form, even the pitch, but immediately when we put it in development in Australia, we will make it Australian, and it will make all the sense in the world.

“I’m not Australian as you might tell… And, so sometimes I’ll be spot-on and sometimes people might say, ‘I’m not sure about this one for this marketplace’. And we learn as we go along. Because we didn’t work here for the last decade, we’re also learning the lay of the land. But it goes back to what I said at the beginning, when there’s a great story, there’s just a great story on the table, and then when it’s great, then broadcasters in different parts of the world are gonna look at it and go, ‘wait, it’s so great. How can I make this here? I’d like to make this here’. So, to me, it goes back to a great story and also some kind of understanding about Australia specifically, or a different territory, culturally, and speaking to all the players on the ground, you start getting a sense of what kind of stuff is right to bring in. And then again, we get pitches from Australia, we get ideas from writers and from producers in Australia, and we look at those and go, ‘yes, some of them are great’. This is the thing we can contribute to, and it feels very Australian, and at the same time, we can see how this can go global. So, it’s that kind of combination.”

Australia has, in the past, been a very attractive market for overseas co-productions. Are you also focused on co-productions? 

“I’m actually here to do Australian shows, not shoot American shows for the tax break, which is understandable, but that’s a different business. We’re actually here to make shows. I will wanna bet that in the next year, the likes of Your Honor, we actually would make them here. And not in the US. Because the price tag in the US is becoming so high that not all shows are gonna justify that price tag moving forward. And, so I think when you’re gonna have these kind of dramas, family drama, thrillers or whatnot, some of them might be better to produce in a different English-speaking country like Australia, and make it for a cost that makes sense for the show. And also, for us producers, coming and working in Australia, just like other countries, allows us and the Australian producers to own the show outside of Australia and to make deals to finance it, and therefore, hopefully enjoy the upside of them when they sell outside of the territory. So, it’s all of that together.

“There are so many talented people on the ground here. You guys have the best incentives, I think, on the planet at this point. I can’t say enough good words about your country. I think other people probably feel the same. So, it really is a perfect place to work in. And, I think that, ironically, co-productions are a product of need, they’re here because everybody needs it. People need more money. The shows are costing more, the deficits are becoming bigger, and therefore, collaborations and cooperations outside of anybody’s territory are a must now, in order to finance the show. So, I think, it’s a great time, ironically, because we need to do this.

“But the fact that we need to do this has brought us here. And the fact that we’re here to do it is a fantastic thing because, as you can tell, I’ve been doing it for years now. I’m still super excited about every opportunity because it’s so much fun and so exciting to be able to tell other kinds of stories, not just American stories, and be able to work with people out here. And the thought that we can do an Australian show here that would fly and go global all over the world, like Colin from Accounts and the likes of it, is really appealing on every level. I think that just generally, Australia has all the components, yet not so many global hits on TV. And, I think that’s the aspiration – to go in and to, maybe three, four years from now, look back and go, ‘look, we did something’.”

Would you say that the biggest opportunity right now for Australian producers, is focusing on homegrown Australian shows, that can then become global hits?

“I think I would make that case for any country and certainly for Australia as an English-speaking country. One of the things that we see in a lot of countries like Australia, and again, it’s understandable, is a lot of cop shows, procedurals, they have a marketplace too. It’s understandable why they’re making those. But, again, I don’t know that an Australian cop show is at the top of the list of any global buyer, because they can get that from other territories. Colin From Accounts, you can’t. It is a very singular Australian product, right? So, you can’t just go, ‘never mind, I’ll just pick up a French sitcom instead’. No, it’s not an alternative for Colin. And, and thank God for Colin just recently because, I can point out and go, ‘yeah, that’s what it looks like. It looks like a singular Australian product that you got out of Australia, and that’s why it’s on Paramount+ beyond Australia. So, I think that’s the way to go. And again, there’s no one way of doing it, but I’m not here for the incentives like (many) Americans are, I’m here for the content. I’m here to develop great original content with great partners. That’s what excites me. The rest will follow, the financing, the selling, all that stuff. But the focus is on developing great content here.”