Marco Polo - Netflix Original Series

[GeneChing]

How to Build an Empire, the Netflix Way
By EMILY STEEL NOV. 29, 2014


Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Marco Polo’

John Fusco, creator of the Netflix series ”Marco Polo,” narrates a scene in which the 13th-century traveler enters the court of Kublai Khan.
Publish Date November 29, 2014. Photo by Phil Bray for Netflix.

In the first episode of “Marco Polo,” Netflix’s coming original series, the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan sits on a throne in his gilded palace and plots the future conquests of his growing empire.

One adviser questions whether the ruler desires to be emperor of Mongolia or emperor of China. Khan rises from his throne, draws his sword and roars: “Emperor of China? Emperor of Mongolia? I want to be emperor of the world!”

Such an audacious declaration could very well have been written for Netflix itself as it pursues global expansion at breakneck speed. This streaming company has pushed aggressively into just over 50 countries and counts more than 50 million total global subscribers. Conquering foreign lands is now crucial as its growth slows in the United States.

“It is no secret that we want Netflix to be a global product,” said Ted Sarandos, its chief content officer. “That is the mission.”

As was the case with Kublai Khan’s 13th-century empire building, Netflix’s 21st-century mission will involve a series of battles as the company encounters vast cultural differences, fierce rivals and high costs, among other challenges.


Olivia Cheng in a scene from “Marco Polo,” an original series on Netflix, which will be available for streaming on Dec. 12. Credit Phil Bray for Netflix

Already, Netflix has stumbled. Infrastructure issues like establishing payment systems for customers proved difficult in Latin America. And about a fifth of the company’s market value has evaporated since mid-October, after it disappointed investors with slower-than-expected subscriber growth that followed its September debut in France, Germany and other European markets. Some analysts have raised concerns that rapidly rising obligations tied to paying for content (totaling $8.9 billion as of September) could leave it in a precarious financial position in the long term.

Media executives and analysts predict that as Netflix pushes ahead with its global mission, it will face threats from local insurgents, as a growing number start streaming services of their own. It must also outmaneuver competitors like Time Warner’s HBO, which already has a robust international business and announced a streaming deal last week in China.

“Netflix is the one that everybody speaks about, but there are lots and lots and lots and lots of others,” said Keith LeGoy, president of international distribution at Sony Pictures Television. “New streaming services are launching every week.”

Netflix’s global ambitions mirror a quest across the media industry to offset slowing domestic growth by expanding abroad. “Some people have said that it is checkmate before it started,” said David Bank, a media analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “But it is really, really early days.”

Netflix is doubling down on its international bet, preparing to enter markets like Australia and New Zealand next March, and snapping up the global rights for original film and television programs. But perhaps its biggest content wager is “Marco Polo,” its series about the 13th-century traveler’s adventures in the court of Kublai Khan. Netflix owns the international rights for the show, which is produced by the Weinstein Company, an independent studio, and will be available for streaming on all of Netflix’s global outposts on Dec. 12.
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At about $90 million for the first season’s 10 episodes, according to industry executives, the East-meets-West epic is not only Netflix’s most expensive original production to date, but also one of the most expensive series today. Only “Game of Thrones,” on HBO, is said to surpass that steep budget.

While Netflix has a number of original programs in the pipeline, the success of “Marco Polo” will serve as a referendum on how well its original programming strategy performs on a global stage.

Some rivals and analysts said that replicating Netflix’s early success with the drama “House of Cards” and the dark comedy “Orange Is the New Black” for international audiences could prove challenging. The programs generated buzz, won awards and are credited with attracting subscribers. While Netflix did not own global rights to those productions — meaning “House of Cards” appeared on rival TV networks in France and Germany, for instance — executives say the shows helped bolster awareness and perception of Netflix abroad.

Executives and producers said they hoped that “Marco Polo” — filmed in Italy, Kazakhstan and Malaysia with an international cast of hundreds and filled with gory battles, sexual allure, adventure, martial arts and political intrigue — would resonate with viewers around the world.

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[GeneChing]

The series, which cost $90 million for the first 10 episodes, used hundreds of extras in filming. Credit Phil Bray for Netflix

“At the heart of it is a universal story,” said John Fusco, the creator and an executive producer of the series. “The journey of Marco Polo is the hero’s journey, one that all cultures across the globe can relate to.”

Mr. Fusco is intimate with that journey. Known for his work on “The Forbidden Kingdom,” the martial-arts film, and on the thriller “Young Guns,” he said he was captivated as a child by Chinese culture and has been fascinated with Marco Polo’s story ever since. “You cannot read about that stuff without coming across the name Marco Polo,” Mr. Fusco said.

While shooting “Forbidden Kingdom” in 2007, he and his son, Giovanni, then 13, crossed Central Mongolia on horseback, following the Silk Road and tracing the Genghis Khan trail. Along the way, Mr. Fusco said they encountered story after story about Kublai Khan and Marco Polo and the missions the adventurer took to various Mongolian villages.

“It always circled back around to Marco Polo and Kublai Khan,” Mr. Fusco said. “That always fascinated me because so few people make the connection between the two. Marco Polo has been kind of buried under this cloud of rather banal historical dust when the true story is so much more exciting.”

After pitching the idea around Hollywood, Mr. Fusco eventually heard from Harvey Weinstein, whose company has been expanding its television business.

Ben Silverman, chairman of the multimedia studio Electus, recalled having lunch with Mr. Weinstein about five years ago at the rooftop garden of the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, talking about great stories in the public domain that would intrigue viewers across cultures. The two brainstormed about how to create an East-meets-West drama that would include the appeal of a foreign land, but also a Western character who could connect it.
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“Immediately, it was Marco Polo,” Mr. Silverman said. “There was genuine excitement about bringing the Asian storytelling style to the global audience.”

The Weinstein Company and Electus announced in 2012 that they had found a home for the series on Starz, the premium cable network, with Mr. Fusco as the writer. At the time, Mr. Weinstein boasted to the Hollywood publication Variety that the program would be “one of the most expensive shows ever done for pay TV.”

Production soon hit roadblocks. Executives wanted to shoot the series in China, but censors raised issues about the violence and sexual aspects of the story. Projected costs started escalating.


Lorenzo Richelmy with Zhu Zhu in a scene from the new series; Mr. Richelmy was cast as Marco Polo after a global search. Credit Phil Bray for Netflix

Seeking a bigger budget, producers took the idea to Netflix, which had recently started pouring resources into its own original series. Mr. Sarandos said Netflix was not looking specifically for a show that would appeal to international audiences, but rather human stories that were rich and relatable. He picked up Mr. Fusco’s scripts, which had been inspired by Marco Polo’s own accounts, couldn’t put them down and signed on to the project.

“The characters that were created and the relationships that were created, you can lift them up from the time and the place and put them somewhere else, they would work just as well,” Mr. Sarandos said. “They were that well written.”

The resulting production is on a scale much larger than the series planned at Starz. The construction crew included 400 people, with an additional 160 in the art department. The team built 51 sets in Malaysia, including Kublai Khan’s opulent throne room. For battle scenes, hundreds of extras appeared costumed and on horseback.

A global search to cast the role of Marco Polo came down to the wire. Producers had looked at more than 100 actors, holding auditions in London, Australia and Los Angeles, but still hadn’t found their star. Mr. Fusco’s wife, an acting coach and a teacher of Shakespearean drama, stayed up one night, went through the audition tapes and found a little-known Italian actor named Lorenzo Richelmy.

Mr. Richelmy, 24, flew to Malaysia and landed the role. He started an intensive training program that included four hours in the gym, martial arts and horseback-riding lessons each day.

Producers brought on a team of cultural advisers and historians to ensure that the narrative would be authentic enough to hold up to viewers worldwide. They noted details, such as how men would bow before the emperor and how to hold shields when riding horses. Filming wrapped up in Malaysia in August after a five-month shoot that started in the canals of Venice.

“We just tried to make the most exciting, entertaining show we could about this very special world and hope that it would be accessible in a lot of different markets, in a lot of different regions,” said Dan Minahan, an executive producer of the series.

Netflix, which has said it would spend more than $600 million in 2014 to woo people to try the service, has an extensive marketing campaign for “Marco Polo.” It will take cast members to the Comic Con conference in Brazil, for example, and display costumes and props from the series at a mall in Mexico. Other promotions include television, print and digital ads. The tagline is “Worlds will collide.”

The buzz around the show will also serve as a promotional tool for Netflix as it enters new markets, Mr. Sarandos said. Although it doesn’t currently operate in Asia, it hasn’t ruled out the possibility.

Mr. Sarandos likened Netflix’s global expansion to Marco Polo himself. “At some point or another we have all been a stranger in a strange land,” he said. “Netflix is that stranger in a strange land.”

5 days to go....

[GeneChing]

Producer John Fusco Talks MARCO POLO, Hiring an Unknown Lead, Working With Netflix, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON 2, and More
by Christina Radish Posted 5 hours ago



Based on the famed explorer’s adventures in Kublai Khan’s ornate court in 13th century China, the 10-episode Netflix original series Marco Polo is set in a world filled with greed, betrayal, sexual intrigue and rivalry. Marco Polo (Lorenzo Richelmy) is a young Italian merchant who arrives in China with a father he barely knows, who then offers him to the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan (Benedict Wong) as a servant. Captivated by the traveler’s way with words, Kublai Khan and Marco Polo develop a deep trust and bond that leads to many tales of adventure and legend.

During this exclusive phone interview with Collider, show creator/writer/executive producer John Fusco talked about why he was compelled to tell the story of Marco Polo, why Netflix was ultimately the perfect home for the show, the approach they decided to take with the material, having an unknown Italian actor in the lead role of such an epic series, and that there’s a treasure trove of material for possible future seasons. He also talked about writing the sequel for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which will be available exclusively through Netflix and at IMAX theaters on August 28, 2015, basing it on the sequel to the source material, introducing a new generation of sword heroes and star-crossed lovers, the return of Michelle Yeoh, and bringing in Woo-ping Yuen as director. Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Collider: What was it about this story that not only compelled you to tell it, but also made you feel like you could tell it?

JOHN FUSCO: What it was, really, was that I had an unlikely fascination with China when I was really young, and I became fascinated by Marco Polo. He was an Italian kid traveling in China, and I’m of Italian decent with a fascination for China. So, I always felt this connection to him and lived vicariously through the travels of Marco Polo. One of the things, in reading the travels, that always amazed me was to realize just how so few people know anything, at all, about Marco Polo. This amazing historical figure has been reduced to a hide-and-seek swimming pool game, or the myth that he brought noodles back to the West. When you read his accounts, it’s just so much more enthralling and dramatic and relevant. No one knows about this stuff. It’s one of the great untapped stories, certainly untapped in the long-form TV format, which is the only way I think you can tell the Marco Polo story.

And the reason why I felt that I could do it was because there are few things that I’m as passionate about, as I am about Marco Polo and his story. I have spent time in Mongolia, in China. I have read multiple translations of his book and cross-referenced those with Rashīd al-Dīn, who was the Persian historian of the time. I’ve also cross-referenced with Chinese dynasty accounts. I basically have done my homework and feel like I know the subject. There’s also this East meets West quality about it that’s in my wheelhouse.



This series was originally set up at Starz, and now it’s at Netflix. Were you ever worried that the whole thing might fall apart and never get made, or were you always confident that it would somehow work itself out?

FUSCO: No, I was concerned because I love the show so much. We were going great guns and full steam ahead. When we hit that bump that had to do with a production plan in China, it momentarily stalled, and then it looked like it stalled in earnest, and I felt sick. When you believe in something so strongly, it was just like, “Oh, my god, we’ve gotten it to this point. I’ve had this amazing writers’ room. We’ve got these scripts that everyone just loves.” So, yeah, there was that moment that my heart sunk. But Harvey Weinstein, who’s been the driving force behind this, wasn’t going to let it die. In fact, he knew how to take it to the home that it actually belonged in. The incredible global home of Netflix just makes so much sense for this project, on so many levels. It’s amazing!

When you’re dealing with such a vast, epic tale, how do you decide what to include, where to put the focus, where you stay as close to history as possible, and where you deviate to make compelling TV?

FUSCO: We took an approach to the material that was based on the perception of Marco’s accounts. Most historians today acknowledge his accounts as mostly accurate, but definitely a blend of fact and legend, so we had that latitude. In some regards, the journey is still out on Marco Polo and his accounts. Because Marco has left us gaps in his storytelling, we felt that we could take license and use the historical signposts that Marco writes about, but also get creative. The lightbulb for that idea went off, for me, when I learned about Marco’s deathbed experience, which was recorded in Venetian history. And that was that, on his deathbed, on January 9, 1323, he was surrounded by his friends, his family, his relatives and his priest. They said, “Marco, you’re leaving this world now. This is your chance to recount your fabulous tales. If not all of them, at least come clean on the parts you made up. Take back what you made up.” And Marco is reputed to have gotten very angry, and sat himself up and said, “I haven’t told half of what I saw.” So, I put that story up on the writers’ room wall, on day one, and I said, “We are going to not only dramatize the accounts that Marco wrote about, but we’re going to explore the half he might have seen, all in the spirit on his voice and in the spirit of this rich world that he inspired.”

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[GeneChing]

You have an unknown Italian actor in the lead of this big show. Was there ever any pressure to hire a known actor, or was it always just Lorenzo Richelmy?

FUSCO: Another thing that’s great about Netflix is, who else is going to allow you to go and cast an unknown Italian actor that brings such raw verisimilitude to the role. It’s such authentic casting. I always wanted it to be an Italian actor. We brought in Mongolian actors from Mongolia, and we were really striving for authenticity. But we searched around the globe and looked at well over a hundred Marco Polos, came down to the wire, and went back and looked at our Italy tapes, and we realized that we had overlooked someone. That was Lorenzo Richelmy. So, when it came down and we had some strong candidates, in the end, he won the day. Being Italian was surely a part of it, but it was also this uncanny blend of innocence and confidence. He could play this boyishness, but he’s also a man. He was our guy.

You had the scripts in place and you had your cast, but what was your relationship with the directors?

FUSCO: I worked very closely with the directors. Dan Minahan was great at finding the best directors and the best DPs, to unify the look and style of the show. They were all huge on preparation and research, so I was able to bond with each of them. I was on set with them and I was open to their great ideas. The directors all contributed so much. They kept the voice consistent, but they all brought their own unique signature to it.

When you tell a story like Marco Polo, that is so epic in scope and scale, do you have to have it fully detailed and planned out before it ever starts shooting, and do you also have to allow for some open doors for future seasons?

FUSCO: Everything is carefully planned out. I come out of the features world and I learned, very quickly, that TV is this run-and-gun approach to production. You have to measure three times and cut once. Everything needs to be planned out, very carefully. We had our scripts ready, well before production, so we were able to fine tune them. Of course, you make discoveries along the way and in rehearsals, and that’s all exciting. In terms of a future for the show, my focus is in doing the best Season 1 that we can. Marco Polo was in China for 17 years, so there’s a treasure trove of material. But at this point, I’m just focused on Season 1.



You must have had a positive experience working with the Weinstein Company and Netflix, teaming up with them again to write the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon follow-up. Is that more of a companion film, or is it an actual sequel?

FUSCO: I view it as a sequel because it’s actually based on the literary sequel to book 4 of the Wang Dulu pentalogy, which is the source material for Crouching Tiger. In fact, when Harvey first contacted me, I told him that the only way that I would do this would be if we could be true to that source material and base the sequel on book 5, which was called Iron Knight, Silver Vase. In that literary sequel, a new generation of sword heroes and star-crossed lovers is introduced, and Harvey was all for that. He agreed and felt that was the only way to do it, to be true to the DNA of the project, but also to bring Michelle Yeoh back and to bring in Master Woo-ping, who really created the Crouching Tiger fight vernacular. He’s a man that’s considered a pioneer of the genre that inspired Ang Lee, and he came in to direct. That’s what it is. We’re not out there trying to top anything, in a Hollywood fashion. We’re telling a sequel, based on the literary sequel to the book.

Even though it will be available through Netflix, which makes the viewing easier for people, would you recommend that people make the extra effort and spend the extra money to see the film in IMAX theaters, if possible?

FUSCO: I think that with the movie-going experience evolving the way it is, it’s really up to the viewer. Do you go to a sporting event, like a football game, or do you watch it at home? Some prefer to stay at home and watch it on the couch with their nachos, and they enjoy the game. Others want to go and have the stadium experience. I think it really comes down to the viewer, and that’s what’s great about Netflix. We’re all busy now, at this time in our lives, and viewers want to have the choice of how they’re going to see it.

Marco Polo is available on Netflix, starting on December 12th.

I'm at the 50th Anniversary of Grandmaster Lau Fat Mang’s Passing Banquet tomorrow so I won't be able to tune in until the weekend.

[doug maverick]

I'm going to start watching it tomorrow, morning.. i planned it out as my weekend show to watch.

[PalmStriker]

Watched 3 episodes tonight. Excellent. TCMA Kung fu is honored in 3rd episode. Will be as big as CTHD.

[Oso]

in the middle of Ep. 2.
def liking it. some 'mantis' dialogue from the Chinese/Song dynasty chancellor character.
loving the staff work from marco's trainer.

lots and lots of eye candy as well

[PalmStriker]

Finished watching all episodes, the unexpected at every corner all the way to the end. A Masterpiece!

[sanjuro_ronin]

Haven't watched it yet, watch the spoilers *****es !!

[GeneChing]

PalmStriker for the binge watching king of the KFM forum!!

Inside TV+Movies with Daniel Fienberg
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"Marco Polo"
Credit: Netflix

Interview: 'Marco Polo' producer Daniel Minahan talks naked kung fu, Netflix and spaghetti
'Game of Thrones' veteran comes Netflix's latest to his HBO favorite
By Daniel Fienberg @HitFixDaniel | Saturday, Dec 13, 2014 1:00 AM

The latest journey of Marco Polo has brought the 13th century Italian merchant into the world of 21st century digital entertainment with a dose of '70s kung fu and just a hint of premium cable fantasy.

"Marco Polo," which premiered on Friday (December 12) on Netflix, has been described as the streaming service's answer to "Game of Thrones," an expensive epic of warring armies, courtly intrigue and not-insignificant quantities of nudity.

Of course, I'm not making that comparison and neither is "Marco Polo" EP Daniel Minahan.

"The similarity is that there's court intrigue but I think that's about it," Minahan tells me. "I mean we're set in Mongolia and China; it's the story of a warlord rather than six different kingdoms vying for their throne. There's really big differences in the way 'Marco Polo,' the tone of it and the structure of it. I think the only thing that might be similar would be the scale of it, you know, the idea that we were creating this big spectacle. But that's just what it takes to re-create the Empire of the Kublai Khan."

But Minahan's presence as producer and director on "Marco Polo" pushes the comparison, since his directing credits including five "Game of Thrones" episodes, as well as installments of some of HBO's other acclaimed shows including "Six Feet Under" and "Deadwood."

"Marco Polo" represents Minahan's first time as an executive producer, as he's had the opportunity to help shape series creator John Fusco's vision on locations in Malaysia and Kazakhstan bringing, as he says, the Empire of Kublai Khan to life.

I chatted with Minahan this week about achieving the scope and realism of "Marco Polo," but also about the series' crazier moments, including a naked kung fu set piece that caps the second episode. We discussed the long process that led to the casting of Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy as Polo, plus the shaping of the 10-episode drama for Netflix's binge-friendly audience.

Check out the full Q&A below...

HitFix: What do you think that audiences come into this series knowing or thinking about Marco Polo? The guy, not the series.

Daniel Minahan: I have to be honest, when I came to this I knew absolutely nothing except that he was a historical figure who traveled as a merchant and brought back technologies and things. But I don't expect the average audience person to be any more educated than I was when I started this. I think part of what's really fun is just kind of being lured into this world, this really exotic world that they haven't seen before through his eyes. We kind of described him as an embedded journalist in the court of Kublai Khan.

HitFix: Along those lines, one of the things in the early episodes that defines who Marco Polo is and why he's special is that he's a great observer. And while that's very interesting it's not necessarily a sexy trait, dramatically speaking, so how do you sort of the dramatize that and make it exciting the fact that this guy can watch things very well?

Daniel Minahan: I know exactly what you're referring to that sequence where he's going to all the grain stores and you don't know what it is that he is on about at that point, but I think part of the fun of it is watching him absorb this and then watching how it pays off later. Like for example, he's compelled to tell the truth through his observations, and that has a big impact on him and the court. He kind it stirs up this whole court of Kublai Khan with his observations and Kublai Khan is kind of fascinated by him and entrusts him with certain things. So it's this really ultimate fish-out-of-water kind of story where this guy comes in and shakes up this whole scene.

HitFix: Now what is the balance in terms of treating Marco as on one hand a real person about whom there are actual historical documentations but also the idea that he's also at least a semi-mythological character figure to some degree?

Daniel Minahan: Yeah, I think John Fusco's idea is that we're sort of basing this loosely on "The Travels of Marco Polo," which are his journals, which are notoriously embellished to the point where he was known in Italy as Il Milione, The Million Lies. So working in this area of story where some of it's fact and some of it's embellishment and was he there or wasn't he there is really kind of fun and exciting for filmmakers because you can be as colorful as Marco Polo.

HitFix: This is a show that obviously aspires to a certain degree of seriousness but then at the end of the second episode there's a bananas naked kung fu scene, what is sort of the balance you wanted to set between semi-realism and kinda bat-s*** crazy, I guess?

Daniel Minahan: Well, I think like ultimately my goal for this show is to make the most entertaining show that I can. And the framework that we've set out is this very real world of the 13th century court of Kublai Khan, the most powerful warlord with the largest empire in the world at that point, seen through the eyes of Marco Polo. So we've got this great framework and then this kind of behind-the-scenes look at a family business with all the intrigue and jockeying for position between the sons. It just so happens that the family business is that they're warlords running a huge empire. So it's sort of a fun mix of history and fiction. I think happens whenever you try to tell a historical story.

HitFix: But then there's just the straight up craziness though that is also there. I mean... Was there historical evidence of the naked kung fu incident that's at the end of the second episode?

Daniel Minahan: No, but John Fusco had this great idea that this is China so there is some sort of early forms of martial arts and kung fu; it's a real tradition in China, so these people would have been fighting. I think the idea – the thought process is, "Okay here is this concubine; she is the favored concubine of the emperor of the Song Dynasty and she happens to be a kung fu master. I think in the original scripts there were fluttering robes and something very poetic about it and then we realized like, "Well, it's really going to be hard to fight in a robe; wouldn't it be great if this courtesan just dispatched these guys naked?" And that's kind of how it came about.

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[GeneChing]

HitFix: When you get down to sort of influences on stuff like that are you looking at the wu xia kind of thing or are you looking almost sort of back to Shaw Brothers to some degree?

Daniel Minahan: We tried to avoid Shaw Brothers movies as a reference, but certainly there we do have a blind monk who's a kung fu master but we tried to keep him as far away from that kind of like drunken monk stereotype as possible. And I think there's a lot of fun with him. He's also kind of badass. So we're playing in all the genres. One of the films that we studied a lot was "Dragon" and "Grandmaster" and we realized that we had this opportunity to do these kung fu sequences and the directors were are all gung ho to do it, but we also had the very real – for example in "Grandmaster," Master Ping would shoot those scenes for like a week, those type sequences and we had maybe three days. So the challenge was to do sort of like Hong Kong style fight sequences but with our own mark. In some instances you'll see as the season goes on there's definitely homage to other films and you'll feel the influence. We really wanted to work in the genre and reference Chinese cinema whenever possible.

HitFix: Now you come at this from a sort of interesting perspective wherein you have been a writer and a director and now a producer so you've worn all the sorts of hats, whereas John hasn't really done TV so much. How much is your role to sort of make sure that he knows what the limitations are? And what are the limitations at this point?

Daniel Minahan: Well, I try not to think of them as limitations. I feel like John comes at it with this incredible exuberance. He's been thinking about this project for a long time and Marco Polo and martial arts are two really big passions of his. So I just try to take his dream and make it real within the confines that we have, which can sometimes be time, sometimes be budget, other times it's just the practicality of what's possible. John comes from a feature background and it's a different kind of storytelling but he's fallen in. He's also a novelist so John right away clicked into this idea, like, "This is long form; it's a slow burn and it's not unlike the work that I've done as a novelist because I don't have to go back and re-explain every time in every hour, I don't have to re-explain everything with exposition in every hour, that it has a kind of a flow to it." And the way people watch it is actually like literature. It's like read one chapter, watch five chapters. The way Netflix distributes it is very freeing that way.

HitFix: With Netflix you can't talk about the model without talking about binge viewing. So how did you guys approach the balance of episode-to-episode storytelling versus a full season and the possibility that someone could watch this in a full block?

Daniel Minahan: Yeah. Our executives really made it really clear to us that the way they encouraged people to watch it is you could watch as little or as much as you want to at a time. So with that in mind we had to think of it as sort of like a 10-hour film. So you don't want to double back on yourself; you don't want to have to reiterate story lines; you are assuming that the audience is watching it in sequence, in order and you don't want to repeat, for example, musical themes. Like suppose The Blue Princess has a theme, you want to make sure that it's not repetitive. In a 90-minute film you could get away with doing that to great effect, but after 10 hours if people are watching three hours at a time, it can begin to feel repetitive and boring or cheap. So I think you really encourage the composers to change the instrumentation, transpose it in a different way so it feels the same but it feels fresh. There's a lot of considerations for things like that.


HitFix: You could have approached Marco Polo's story as sort of a globe-trotting family adventure and you guys didn't go down that road. You cut off sort of the younger portion of the audience, why did you decide that this was an adult story per se?

Daniel Minahan: When I came onto this project John had the majority of the scripts written with his team of writers. The idea was always to get as quickly to the court of Kublai Khan as possible. I think it's the most surprising part of the story. It's the most interesting part of the story. I think there's probably been a member of films and television movies about the journey of the Polo family across the Silk Road and the hardships they encountered. That just wasn't as interesting to us. It was really clear, especially when we started cutting it together, that Kublai Khan was going to be one of the major darlings of the story and it was really compelling and our idea was to focus it as much as possible in that world.

HitFix: Much has been made of sort of the difficulties of finding your Marco Polo. What was hard, what was the edict in casting and what made Lorenzo the right person?

Daniel Minahan: We had had a couple of near misses with other actors, one was a British, one was Australian, very fine actors, but when we got them in a room and started working with them and with the actresses that we were considering for the Blue Princess, there just wasn't this energy. And somehow like a British dialect always sounded strange to us. Then after like a month or two we realized that we need to go deeper and we asked our Nina Gold, our casting person, to get us the casting person in Rome and start putting people on tape for us. We said, "It's got to be someone Italian to give it some flavor." It's a very international world that we're depicting. Suddenly it becomes kind of theatrical if everyone has a British accent or doing a British dialect. We looked at a lot of people. No one really came forward right away and it's like one of those Lana Turner in Schwab stories. We thought we'd seeing everyone and then someone went through all the tapes again and we had overlooked this one guy and that was Lorenzo. And the next morning everybody looked at it and we were blown away. And he came down to meet with us in Malaysia like two days later and it was just one of those moments where it was so clear with him he was so witty, he was charming. He wasn't playing it like a guileless kind of ingénue, he was like this ambitious young man and we like that about him.

HitFix: And people have talked about this as a Netflix's attempt to do a "Game of Thrones" as it were. You obviously come from a perspective where you know what works and doesn't work on "Game of Thrones." How would you say this is similar and what sort of clear distinctions would you make other than one has dragons and one does not?

Daniel Minahan: I think there's a really different kind of story we're telling here, whereas "Game of Thrones" is a huge ensemble cast with many different worlds. We're pretty much in one world and experiencing it through the eyes of a single protagonist. And especially the first season is sort of about his coming of age in that court. The similarity is that there's court intrigue but I think that's about it. I mean we're set in Mongolia and China; it's the story of a warlord rather than six different kingdoms vying for their throne. There's really big differences in the way "Marco Polo," the tone of it and the structure of it. I think the only thing that might be similar would be the scale of it, you know, the idea that we were creating this big spectacle. But that's just what it takes to re-create the Empire of the Kublai Khan.

HitFix: This goes back to sort your role in knowing what you can and can't do. What have you sort of hit as the limitations like in terms of the number of extras you can have or in terms of the scale of the set? What can you not functionally depict at this point?

Daniel Minahan: We're pretty ambitious in this season and we even staged a battle, that was maybe the most challenging thing that we did and we staged in Southeast Asia. And that was a big challenge. There weren't a lot of horses; we were trying to use authentic horses that they would of had in Mongolia. So in Kazakhstan we had a huge number of background people and horses as you saw in the second episode where Kublai Khan challenges his brother Ariq and they go and they have their fight. I think it's hard to imagine. We managed to do a ship. We managed to create a sandstorm. I'm sure there were things – I'd say naval battle would be one place where I would draw the line. It's something that I would rather not do a naval battle anytime soon, that may be just beyond the scope of our possibility right now.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

HitFix: How does Netflix impose itself I guess in the process differently from how an HBO or whatever might?

Daniel Minahan: You know what, they are very encouraging. They give you a lot of creative freedom. This is my first time working as an executive producer on a show so I can't really compare how they relate to other, you know, how HBO maybe treats executive producers. I only worked as a director there. So I just think Netflix was great. They were there with us shoulder-to-shoulder like on location. They were in Malaysia with us, they were in Venice with us and they were very helpful when we needed it. They're really good filmmakers, they're smart.

HitFix: Had you been looking for the right project to get into on the executive producing side as you say?

Daniel Minahan: I'd been offered a number of times to work as an EP or producing director on different series, premium cable and network stuff and I resisted it until now because it wasn't the right thing for me and this one came forward and I just thought it was remarkable. I knew it was really ambitious and I knew it would be really hard but I was so blown away by the world it was depicting that I had to do it.

HitFix: Where does the first season take us historically and what is the multi-season plan if you guys had your sort of druthers?

Daniel Minahan: Wow. I'd rather not say what happens at the end of the first season. Kublai Khan, it's very clear in the beginning of the first episode he has his sights on unifying China, and in particular the final piece in the puzzle for him is Xiangyang and the Song Dynasty and this wall that his grandfather Genghis to wasn't able to defeat 30 years earlier. So it's clear we're leading in that direction at this season. What happens in other seasons, if we're lucky enough to get a second and a third season there are any number of stories and directions it can go. We have Kublai Khan who's on a mission to create this huge empire but we also have Marco Polo who lives in the court of the Kublai Khan for 17 years so there's a lot of story to tell.

HitFix: Did he invent spaghetti?

Daniel Minahan: [He laughs.] I would say no he did not, whether or not – the interesting thing about Marco Polo is that because he traveled that route of the Silk Road it was a very important route because it brought back artisans, technology, goods of course, but it linked all these different worlds. And these merchants kind of were like moving ideas back and forth so he would have been really influential and the people that traveled the Silk Road would have been very influential because they would of have access to the best architects in Damascus, the best whatever in China. It was a very rich resource and brought back important things and ideas to Europe, like paper money was something that came back from Mongolia and China to Europe.

HitFix: I just wasn't sure if Season 7 was going to be entirely dedicated to linguine and the swimming pool game?

Daniel Minahan: Exactly. You know, I still don't understand or know the genesis of that swimming pool game so that would be a really interesting thing to learn.

HitFix: Well, if you don't teach us who is going to teach us?

Daniel Minahan: Exactly.

I'm only two episodes in. I can totally see Fusco's influence as he's a mantis practitioner. Enjoyable so far...

[David Jamieson]

Started watching this series this past weekend.
It's really good!

HBO quality show.
Worth it.

No spoilers. You're welcome Paul.

[PalmStriker]

Not giving away anything about the series but will post this reference that helps gel some of the details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty

[GeneChing]

I'm almost done with episode 3 - luved the Kung Fu opening in this ep - unfortunately I'm too busy to be able to binge it all. What's more, my internet connection is messed up at home right now so my streaming keeps cutting out. But I'm finding the series very enjoyable overall - epic scale - the costumes, sets and panoramic scenery is spectacular. But most of all, I'm enjoying the sword fights. And the gratuitous nudity.

Digital Audience Ratings: ‘Marco Polo’ Travels from Trending to Top

December 16, 2014 | 09:00AM PT
Jason Klein @listenfirst

Provided by ListenFirst Media, DAR – TV measures what entertainment content is resonating most across Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube and Wikipedia combined. For more on the methodology behind DAR – TV, scroll to the bottom of the article.
Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) – TV

Broadcast Monday Dec 8, 2014 – Sunday Dec 14, 2014
RANK LAST WEEK PROGRAM RATING(000)
1 1 The Voice 18,430
2 2 America’s Got Talent 4,581
3 3 America’s Funniest Home Videos 2,659
4 4 The Simpsons 2,240
5 8 The Vampire Diaries 2,083
6 5 The Flash 1,479
7 6 Dancing With The Stars 1,242
8 7 Arrow 1,169
9 9 Supernatural 1,047
10 - The Big Bang Theory 957
-
Cable/Streaming Monday Dec 8, 2014 – Sunday Dec 14, 2014
RANK LAST WEEK PROGRAM RATING(000)
1 1 Key and Peele 6,327
2 3 Pretty Little Liars 5,661
3 2 Top Gear 4,457
4 6 Sons of Anarchy 2,715
5 5 The Walking Dead 2,404
6 4 South Park 1,811
7 8 WWE Raw 1,375
8 - Naked and Afriad 1,279
9 - Marco Polo 1,085
10 - Beyond Scared Straight 1,078
-
Late Night Monday Dec 8, 2014 – Sunday Dec 14, 2014
RANK LAST WEEK PROGRAM RATING(000)
1 1 The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon 27,210
2 2 Jimmy Kimmel Live 13,780
3 3 Conan 8,642
4 - Late Show With David Letterman 2,645
5 4 The Graham Norton Show 2,511
Trending Monday Dec 8, 2014 – Sunday Dec 14, 2014
PROGRAM RATING(000) % CHANGE
Eye Candy 347 +6,094%
20/20 204 +857%
The Real Housewives of New Jersey 54 +854%



Insights:

“Late Show with David Letterman” made an appearance on this week’s Late Night leaderboard, thanks to two of his guests who put on quite a show, leading to 73% more YouTube views than last week. Actor Joaquin Phoenix announced his engagement in an interview with Letterman, and rapper J. Cole performed his new song “Be Free.”
“Pretty Little Liars” aired its much-anticipated Christmas special this week, landing it in the number two spot on the Cable/Streaming leaderboard. Promotion of the special episode across all of the show’s social channels led to over 2.6MM engagements on both Facebook and Instagram, more than any other TV shows this week across broadcast and cable.
MTV’s upcoming drama, “Eye Candy,” drummed up fan excitement ahead of its first official trailer release on 12/15. One week ahead of the full trailer, MTV posted a teaser trailer to YouTube, sending the show to the top of this week’s Trending leaderboard.
“Marco Polo” found its way from the Trending list to the Cable/Streaming leaderboard after premiering its first season on Netflix this week. The release drove more than 134k people to search for the show on Wikipedia, 443% more than last week.



Jason Klein is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of ListenFirst Media, a data and analytics company providing insights for brands. ListenFirst aggregates data streams from a wide range of digital, social, and traditional marketing sources to help brands optimize business performance.

Methodology:

Note: Twitter data has been removed from Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) for Television as of 10/7/2014.

ListenFirst Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) for Television are a raw aggregate of daily engagements based on owned, earned and organic consumer behavior on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Wikipedia and YouTube. These engagements encompass metrics pertaining to audience growth, page/profile views, page-level and post-level interactions, hashtag volume and Wikipedia page views for all television program pages (which provides a proxy for organic search volume).

Organic conversation volume is calculated based on the use of official hashtags, as well as those hashtags submitted directly from programmers and distributors. Only hashtags where conversation can be isolated to a specific television program are included in the rating.

The Variety weekly leaderboards for television represent the 7-day (Monday – Sunday) sum total of DAR – TV for all episodic programming, in and out of season, from the most popular programmers (Broadcast, Cable, & Streaming Services). Sports, live events, short-form content and other non-episodic programming are excluded from this ranking cohort but available to be rated directly by ListenFirst Media.

The Broadcast and Cable/Streaming Originals leaderboards each surface the respective top ten primetime programs. The Late Night leaderboard surfaces the top five late night / variety genre programs, from across the programming universe. Streaming Originals are considered primetime cable programming.

The Trending Leaderboard surfaces the three programs that tracked the largest relative growth in DAR – TV (from the previous 7-day measurement period), and are also in the top 25% based on absolute DAR – TV, from across the programming universe.

ListenFirst monitors the official digital account owned by the program on each aforementioned platform (except for Wikipedia, where the title-specific profile is considered official). Only the U.S. version of a program’s digital presence is monitored; for platforms that support regional profiles like Facebook, the “Global” profile is considered the U.S. profile. Only profiles that can be attributed to the specific program contribute to the rating (i.e. engagements that happen on the profile facebook.com/LouieFX are tracked, while engagements that happen on facebook.com/FX are not). For YouTube, in addition to any program-specific presence, content related to the program in question that originated on the parent company’s official YouTube channel is considered.

For other questions pertaining to methodology, contact ListenFirst Media.