Banijay UK’s Patrick Holland Talks Peaky Film, Half Man, Rogue Heroes

EXCLUSIVE: Richard Gadd’s Half Man and the Peaky Blinders film are 2026 drama moments in-the-making. The world of scripted TV drama has, nonetheless, been reshaped in a number of brief years since Covid, and as Government Chairman of Banijay UK, Patrick Holland’s job is ensuring these scripted moments work for each the broadcasters and streamers and the Banijay backside line.

In March, Banijay CEO Marco Bassetti instructed us its scripted income will quickly high $1B and pinpointed the UK as a hotspot for progress. The precise numbers by style are usually not damaged down for the UK, however the firm says that drama income for Banijay UK was up 77% between 2023 and 2025 and can greater than double by 2027.

“The reveals which can be transferring are those the place you’ve obtained that confluence of nice writing, which attracts good solid, and a practical strategy; to have the ability to perceive that’s higher to get a present arrange and made, quite than sit there ready for the hundreds of thousands to roll in,” Holland says.

He factors to imminent Channel 4 mission A Girl Of Substance from The Forge, the prodco Banijay acquired in late 2023. “They labored out a manner of capturing it that meant that it’s obtained all of that interval grandeur, however with out the prices of a full world-building. You’re in a position to shoot that in a interval manner that implies that you don’t want a solid of 1000’s.”

Drama cash was flowing freely in 2022 when Holland joined Banijay. The Hollywood strikes and streamers reining in spending meant the image modified and producers and broadcasters within the UK felt the impression of U.S. {dollars} leaving the room. A number of big-ticket initiatives obtained caught in a limbo whereby they’ve a commissioning channel in Britain however can’t get a U.S. associate to finish the finances and get the present into manufacturing.

“’Complacency’ is simply too robust a phrase, however there was positively a way wherein you bought a BBC fee after which [assumed] the U.S. cash would comply with and also you’d get it financed,” Holland says. “That positively modified. There turned far more of a way of ‘That’s not going to work in my market, I’m not taking that present.’ That manner wherein you comfortably obtained to £3M [per episode] for a collection has disappeared. However that’s to not say that you may’t consider different methods; you’ll be able to nonetheless make an awesome present for £2M, or you will get there by having nice funding companions.”

Recency bias imply that within the occasions of peak drama all the things was nice, and post-peak there’s some gloom, however Holland is upbeat in regards to the fundamentals of the UK enterprise. “The BBC continues to be commissioning 30 dramas a yr, which is a tremendous quantity, and there’s Channel 4, and ITV are at about 20 dramas a yr. Netflix is about 10 or 12 dramas. Disney is about eight. You add all these collectively, you’ve obtained a really giant scripted market on this nation.”

By way of budgets, there’s a UK and U.S. divide, however British prodcos can nonetheless sit on the high desk on the subject of TV drama, based on Holland. “There are high-profile, high-budget reveals like Shogun, or The Final Of Us, or Home of the Dragon which can be astonishing. These reveals are nearer to motion pictures than they’re to a tv collection.” However not all the things needs to be Alien Earth magnitude, he provides, citing Half Man, the brand new present from Child Reindeer creator Richard Gadd and made by Banijay’s Mam Tor. “HBO are the co-commissioners [with the BBC] and it’s not the most cost effective present, however neither is it the most costly on HBO’s roster. However it reveals you simply what the U.S. thinks of high-end British expertise and our potential to inform tales throughout borders.”

In its latest outcomes, Banijay has pointed to a rise in revenues from its drama enterprise. On Holland’s watch, the UK enterprise has very a lot purported to accumulate. His pitch to Marco Bassetti and Banijay Chairman Stéphane Courbit was for a pot of money that Banijay UK would spend money on indies to ascertain a greater foothold within the UK drama biz. A £50M Development Fund was duly created.

“We had been taking a look at a number of the firms that had been being acquired on the time in scripted, folks like Dangerous Wolf and Component Footage, and so they had been going for very excessive multiples. The price of shopping for into mature firms was seen as prohibitive,” he says. The aim was, subsequently, to principally spend money on smaller outfits and scale them.

“Our funding buys a minority chunk of the enterprise and as that firm begins to get into revenue, we will then purchase the following chunk of fairness, after which we will consolidate that firm as considered one of our personal,” Holland explains. “The pitch was that that is actually good as a manner for us, in three or 4 years, to have a a lot bigger scripted slate. It additionally despatched out a message to the drama neighborhood within the UK that we’re actually severe about scripted. There was a component of making an attempt to vary the notion. We’ve at all times been seen as a way more as an unscripted enterprise. We had been 70% unscripted and 30% scripted and now this yr, we can be 50-50.”

The likes of Kudos and The Forge are sizable sufficient that they’ve their very own standalone infrastructures, however the different labels feed right into a scripted hub at Banijay, which gives shared back-office and useful resource. Holland says start-up labels have to retains overheads down and concentrate on getting inexperienced lights. “While you have a look at Deadline and also you say, ‘Oh, my God, why has that firm closed?’ The explanation they closed in a single day is as a result of they misplaced a present, and the overhead was simply too excessive. Should you can attempt to de-risk that for firms, it implies that it’s far more of an extended recreation.”

Reveals going by way of the scripted hub embrace the massive initiatives like Half Man, psychological drama Unchosen (fka Out Of The Mud) from Double Dutch, in addition to the returning rebooted detective collection Bergerac from BlackLight TV and extra modestly-budgeted reveals from that label resembling Welsh crime drama The One That Acquired Away.

Banijay has instructed traders it’s doing extra enterprise with the streamers and the likes of The Forge’s The Buccaneers for Apple, which has greenlit a 3rd season, and Kudos-produced Home of Guiness for Netflix are big-ticket SVOD objects.

“The extent of ambition that the streamers can deliver from the get-go is astonishing,” Holland says, however he additionally likes the previous system of constructing a present for a PSB or broadcaster after which promoting it all over the world. “Our creatives wish to pitch to the PSBs, as a result of they’re nonetheless seen as a massively vital place to go to creatively. And commercially, if we will develop a present with a PSB and retain the worth over time, that’s useful to us as a enterprise. Kudos, for instance, continues to be making vital cash annually out of Broadchurch.”

Discuss of working with pubcasters inevitably results in the chatter linking Holland to any of the highest jobs on the BBC. A former channel controller at BBC Two, he’s a vocal advocate for the UK’s pubcasters. A transfer shouldn’t be, nonetheless, within the playing cards, he says when requested if he can be at Banijay for the foreseeable. “Positively,” he says. “It’s an enviable place being throughout such a variety of nice creatives…I actually get a buzz from that. This is among the greatest jobs in tv, so I’ve obtained no plans on leaving anytime quickly.”

The Script For 2026 And Past

The 2026 pipeline contains Falling, from one of many creators of Adolescence, Jack Thorne. It stars Paapa Essiedu & Keeley Hawes as a priest and a nun who fall in love. Thorne – the UK’s most prolific and profitable TV author – can also be adapting Suzanne Heywood bestseller Wavewalker with Kitty Kaletsky and James Norton’s Banijay-backed label Rabbit Observe. That banner additionally has a brand new Sally Wainwright (Completely satisfied Valley) mission. Mam Tor, in the meantime, has Open Water for the BBC, primarily based on the lauded Caleb Azumah Nelson novel and which Holland likens to Regular Folks however in South London. Elsewhere, work is underway on an adaptation of Eloise Ridge’s buzzy debut novel ‘Life’s A Bitch’ after Conker Footage beat out competitors to land the rights.

Returning collection are sometimes the true money-spinners and Season 3 of SAS: Rogue Heroes is filming with hopes for a Season 4. Banijay can also be hopeful that Kudos’ Home Of Guinness comes again for a second run. Thomas Shelby’s journey is ready to proceed within the Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man movie, whereas two new seasons of the common collection are additionally greenlit for the BBC within the UK and Netflix within the U.S. “The film will take folks’s breath away,” Holland says. “Cillian and Barry Keoghan collectively—that’s fairly particular. Rebecca Ferguson is astonishing in it too.“

Banijay purchased Peaky producer Caryn Mandabach Productions and renamed it Garrison Drama. Other than a sticky tax subject, it seems to be paying dividends with the 2 Steven Knight-penned collection and a function coming. Banijay has additionally backed Popcorn Storm, the indie run by Negeen Yazdi and Tom Harper, whose directing credit embrace Peaky.

In the meantime, the purse strings of U.S. consumers are loosening. Michael Thorn, boss of the Fox community, talked this week about serving to the British drama business flip its ‘blinking greenlights’ to ‘full greenlights. Elsewhere, a latest report from producers business physique PACT confirmed a wholesome uptick in exports of UK-produced reveals, and notably to the U.S.

 “As that report just lately confirmed, British drama is massively liked the world over,” Holland says. “The explanation why Marco and I discuss our UK scripted investments rising, and being an space the place we’ll make investments extra, is as a result of we will see that progress. The worldwide urge for food for high-end scripted shouldn’t be going away, and in UK we’ve obtained the language, we’ve obtained the expertise, and we’ve obtained the know-how to have the ability to make these reveals in a manner that has an authenticity that works the world over.”