Producer Timur Savci co-heads prolific Turkish shingle Tims & B that a decade ago made “Magnificent Century” the Ottoman costume drama that spearheaded the country’s TV boom.
Savci and his team are currently at the MipTV market in Cannes with their new show “Modern Woman” (pictured above) in which a young working woman in Turkey who is single and stuck in between Eastern and Western lifestyles. It’s the first time they’ve fully financed the first season of a series and taken it to market as a readymade. Global Agency is selling.
The Tims co-chief, his partner Burak Sağyaşar, and the company’s director of international operations Selin Arat spoke exclusively to Variety about working with Netflix and Disney+, putting “Century” on the Metaverse, and why they’ve made “Modern Woman” themselves so they can hold on to their IP.
Tims is launching a new series “Modern Woman” at MipTV. It’s the first time you’ve fully financed a show without having it commissioned by a broadcaster/streamer. Talk to me about the concept and why you chose to make it yourselves before bringing it to the global market. Also, is it made with a streaming audience in mind?
Yes, it’s definitely more suitable for streaming. The show basically tackles the suffocation of the modern woman. Any type of modern woman. It’s not done from a sexist point of view. It’s just about what women are facing in the world today, but not with a dramatic and heavy tone. It has an enjoyable rom-com-like feel. It’s a gamble, but it’s a fun gamble for us.
Is Turkish TV content overwhelmingly shifting towards being produced for streaming play?
We are doing more business with streamers. But actually, strategically, for our company linear TV still dominates. Because in terms of rights we hold on to the IP, without having to share rights, and we reach the world through our distribution strategy. Instead, when you work with platforms they control everything. Basically, after creative decisions are mutually made, you shoot it and deliver to the streamers as a readymade product. For us, as producers, that’s not very motivating. Especially since once the show is launched on their platform, the information we get about how it performs is very limited.
Being able to hold on the IP probably explains your decision to make “Modern Woman” as a readymade. Am I right?
Yes. It feeds into that strategy.
That said, your shows “Shahmaran” and “Hot Skull” are both megahits on Netflix. What are the concepts behind them? And how different is making a Turkish show for a streamer compared with making one for linear TV?
“Shahmaran” is based on a very well-known legend that has different versions throughout the world about this half snake, half woman character. But when we conceived it, we incorporated themes that could travel worldwide. We wanted to make it universal that way. “Hot Skull” [set in a dystopian world where an epidemic spreads through verbal communication and a tyrannical institution pursues a linguist immune to the disease] is in the same vein. It’s a story that’s very, very Turkish, but the theme is very universal. Both shows were tough to conceive because we had to create a different world for each one. In “Shahmaran” it was this legendary tale. With “Hot Scull” it was this topical story which is something that hadn’t really been tried in the Turkish drama realm before. So both were very challenging. And we’re proud to say that we were able to tackle it. Both of them are very high-budget Netflix originals from Turkey. We’re happy to see that they have resonated globally as well as also being very successful at home.
But to tell you the truth, whatever we work on, whatever we create, we don’t look at whether it’s going to be for linear TV or for a platform. For us, the content is what matters from the get go. And we want to make sure that our content travels worldwide because we always focus on reaching a global audience in everything we do.
Talk to me about your first series for Disney+ working-titled “Ayten Who Changed the World.” I love the synopsis that says it’s about a woman of scarce means who agrees to commits murders to save her sick daughter and accidentally winds up killing world leaders attending a G-20 summit.
It’s the story of this woman who is a janitor and who, literally, without being aware of it, changes the world. And it doesn’t have any conspiracy theories beneath the surface, or behind the story. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s also very tragic and comical. It’s a satirical story that makes us question the world we live in and really reflects on the society that we live in, where everybody, especially in Turkey, is digging for something beneath the surface of what’s going on with conspiracy theories and such. It’s very original in that sense.
What’s the plan for when this show could drop on Disney+?
We are done with principle photography. It’s now in post-production. The plan is to launch towards the end of 2023, but it depends on the platform’s scheduling. It might move to early 2024.
You are entering the metaverse with “Magnificent Century” through a deal with Sandbox. What’s the significance of this deal? How is “Magnificent Century” content going to be adapted for the Web3 space?
Basically, Sandbox is one of the prominent players in the Metaverse realm, they approached us. They’re starting off what’s called a Turkishverse and they’re trying to incorporate some Turkish brands. And when you look at Turkey in the media industry, one of the biggest trademarks is “Magnificent Century,” so they wanted to see if we could do something together.
Basically, you buy a digital land in the Sandbox, and that gives you a certain area to play in. Within that area, we’re going to be launching a game, which we will be announcing hopefully in October or November of this year. They’re working on that right now. But before that, you need to have avatars, and that’s how you play within the game. So right now they’re working on creating thousands of different versions of the Suleimans and Hurrems and other prominent characters from the show, so that players can pick their avatars and play with them.
We’re learning as we’re getting deeper and deeper into it, but it seems like that’s where the future is and that’s how we’re going to be able to bring the “Magnificent Century” world into the young adult demo. Because they will get to find out about the story while playing the game. And we want to create more than one game, hopefully, if this pans out as we expect.
Last but not least, Turkey was recently devastated by one of the most tragic earthquakes in recent history. How did it impact the Turkish TV industry. How can people outside Turkey help?
The first three weeks, we were totally focused on helping the area logistically. And since Timur is president of the Turkish producers association he was very actively involved. But everybody, even though Istanbul is like 1,000 kilometers away from the disaster area, has been very affected by this tragedy. So we immediately sent generators and all the types of equipment that is used on sets that could be helpful to the area as soon as we could, including caravans for accommodation. And crew members from our production teams went in person to the area to help those in need. In addition to the technical equipment, they also brought medical supplies and food and whatever was needed urgently. At times like this, you don’t think about the entertainment industry. That was not in our minds for a very long time, actually.
And today, yes – the earthquake was more than a month ago – there’s still huge destruction and it’s an ongoing process. So in terms of what you said about what people can do from the outside, there are very serious organizations that are trying to keep up the level of support in the area. They could contact those agencies and find out what they can do. Aside from the immediate need for housing, the Turkish producers association is now looking at the education aspect because schools have been destroyed as well. So they will be building a new school.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.