KGUIDE_1017_INTERVIEWS_DIST_1207_INTERVIEWS 9/18/17 5:36 PM Page 11
Allen Bohbot Managing Director 41 Entertainment TV KIDS: How did the deal for Skylanders Academy come about? BOHBOT: Skylanders is a property created by Activision Blizzard, the large video game company. It was released about six years ago with new technology that quickly became a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. In 2016, Activision Blizzard Studios launched Skylanders Academy as a Netflix original; season one achieved instant success and two additional seasons were commissioned. Activision Blizzard Studios was looking for a distribution partner with experience in global animation and expertise in managing a Netflix original. We understood the specs and were very excited to work with them on this major brand. We’ll be acting as exclusive global sales agent for pay TV, free TV, home entertainment and electronic sell-through (not SVOD, obviously). We will officially launch the property at MIPCOM 2017 with screenings at MIPJunior. The show is a pure comedy, brilliantly written by Eric Rogers, with a great voice cast—including Justin Long, Ashley Tisdale, Jonathan Banks and Susan Sarandon—and a $1-million-per-episode production budget! The show is already dubbed in 25 languages and we believe the property will be well received by the market. TV KIDS: You worked with Netflix on Tarzan and Jane and Kong: King of the Apes. How has that experience been? BOHBOT: It’s been great. Netflix is a great partner. We launched Kong in 2016 and then Tarzan and Jane in 2017, both as originals, and both have been picked up by Netflix for second seasons. Our relationship also led to Super Monsters, another Netflix original, which takes place at Pitchfork Pines Preschool, where the children of the world’s famous (and not-so-famous) monsters come to learn how to be the best people, and the best monsters, they can be. Drac, Cleo, Lobo, Katya, Zoe and Frankie are preschoolers with dual identities—they’re humans in the day and monsters after dark. That’s why this preschool starts each day at the end of the day. It’s adorable! So, we have three Netflix originals to date. 20