HBO’s Francesca Orsi Discusses Directors Wanting To Be The “Final Arbiter” In TV – Series Mania
20.03.2024 - 18:47
/ deadline.com
HBO was built on the back of showrunners such as David Chase, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and Jesse Armstrong but is now facing a new dilemma involving directors.
Drama boss Francesca Orsi lifted the lid on the “consistent tussle” over who is charge of a series as more and more “esteemed” directors move into television.
Orsi, speaking at the Series Mania event in France alongside Jane Tranter, boss of Doctor Who producer Bad Wolf, said that high-profile directing talent want to be the “final arbiter” on the network’s originals.
“One point that’s been very tricky for us is esteemed directors coming in and wanting to be showrunners and the final arbiter of a project, when HBO has been built on the backs of writers and our showrunners,” she said.
She added that film directors are used to complete control.
“These days we need to ensure what we are getting into,” said Orsi. “It’s a consistent tussle about who we are ultimately going to go with if there is an indecisiveness on a creative path forward. That’s a very difficult position to be in, and we are in that a lot, so more and more we try to set it up by asking, ‘Who’s the boss?'”
HBO has changed creative leads on high profile projects such as House of the Dragon, when Miguel Sapochnik stepped down as co-showrunner for season one of the Game of Thrones spin-off, leaving creator Ryan Condal in charge.
Tranter, who has exec produced HBO series including Succession and His Dark Materials, said that the role of showrunner was “one of the big differences” she found when she first produced in the U.S.
“I remember HBO asking that [‘who is the boss’] question several times on a show I was developing with them,” she added. “To my mind, coming from the system I had, the