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The head of Sky Studios’ Italian fare has spotlighted the challenges behind making a Gomorrah prequel in the highly competitive streaming era.
Emanuele Marchesi delved deep into the highly-anticipated next chapter of the hit gang thriller series during an AVPSummit spotlight session this morning.
He said “the world around us has changed” since the first Gomorrah movie was released in 2008, followed by Roberto Saviano’s smash hit series, which premiered in 2014 and ran for five seasons.
“The competitive frameworks are very different now,” said Marchesi. “We didn’t have streamers back then – Netflix arrived in Italy around 2014 – and now there is huge and numerous drama production.”
Produced by Cattleya, the prequel will enter production next year along with another prequel of a popular Sky Italia series, Romanzo Criminale – La serie.
Marchesi, who was promoted late last year to Head of Editorial Content when Sonia Rovai left for Wildside, said the team behind the Gomorroah prequel is conscious that modern-day TV is “challenging the audience and trying to give them something more.”
He described Gomorrah as a “brand” that is still “celebrated” more than 10 years after its release, with his comments coming a day after Sony international productions boss Wayne Garvie said Europeans “seem incapable of” turning TV shows into franchises.
In Germany, Sky recently ceased making scripted originals such as Babylon Berlin and rumors have abound that Italy will head in the same direction.
But Marchesi stressed the “diversification” of his team’s TV slate several times during his session, citing the recent Call My Agent – Italia spin-off along with Joe Wright’s M drama about Benito Mussolini.
While Netflix remains a competitor in Italy, Marchesi said he had admired yesterday’s talk from Luisa Cotta Ramosino, the streamer’s director of Italian language series.
“When she was talking about the stories that she was looking for I liked what she said very much,” he added.
“We need to talk about the stories that touch something which exists in the audience. We are continuing towards diversification, working in that direction and looking for different pathways to meet and satisfy different audiences.”
The AVPSummit concludes today in south Italy and has featured the likes of Garvie, Amazon Italy scripted boss Davide Nardini and Miracles from Heaven producer DeVon Franklin.
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