Pitch Perfect
The Duplass brothers have found a fail-safe way to get a TV project greenlit: Make it themselves
Mark Duplass was feeling insecure.
At one point in his career, he would get greenlight after greenlight for the projects he pitched on behalf of Duplass Brothers Productions, the beloved indie banner he founded with Jay Duplass in the late ’90s. But recently, he and company president Mel Eslyn noticed a problem.
“All the executives who used to buy all of our stuff before we could even open our mouths were passing,” he says. “We were like, ‘Have we lost it?’ And then we started talking to all of our friends. They were like, ‘It’s not you. It’s us too.’ We started sharing these war stories.”
The war they spoke of was the decline of Peak TV. For nearly a decade, Hollywood was producing and distributing more television than ever thanks to the exponential growth of the streaming economy. But that trend began to slow around 2020, with studios warier of the niche fare they previously bought up with ease.
“These companies that started up and created this wonderful boom are contracting and merging. They’re chasing certain things that keep their shareholders happy, and I understand the business, but it’s not the best thing for unique storytelling,” says Duplass, whose TV credits include HBO’S “Togetherness” and “Room 104” — acclaimed among critics, but not exactly franchisable hits drawing millions of viewers a night.
“Mark and I get very impatient,” Eslyn adds with a laugh. “We always want to be making something. So rather than spinning our wheels, spending all this time on a pilot and then trying to sell it, let’s take a gamble on ourselves.”
At South by Southwest 2024, Duplass Brothers Productions presented — and hopes to sell — a showcase of pilots from four series that the company financed itself. Some of that money did come from a studio, but not in the way you’d expect.
“I can go back to ‘The Morning Show’ and make a really nice paycheck, then come here and use that to subsidize what we really want to do,” says Duplass, who plays Chip Black in the Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon-led Apple TV+ drama. “It’s worth it for me.”
Duplass and Eslyn weren’t just tired of having ideas turned down; they were unwilling to compromise their creative vision. Of the four titles that screened at SXSW, only a coming-of-ager called “Penelope” was ever shopped to studios ahead of production.
“We started to inch our way out,” Eslyn says of “Penelope,” “then quickly got nervous that people wanted to change this special thing we were doing. So we held it back and said, ‘We’ll do it.’ It’s the flagship of this operation.”
And since they aren’t seeking production funds, Duplass and Eslyn can focus instead on striking up short-term domestic licensing deals that leave them in control of their IP.
“Test it on your service. If it’s successful, we can be rewarded with a longer license,” Duplass says, explaining the strategy. “If it isn’t, we didn’t make you risk too much. I can go sell in eight other territories around the world to get whole again financially.”
Even the latter scenario represents a win for the emerging talent involved in these projects. As put by Kevin Crotty, the CAA agent selling the titles, the Duplass brothers often act as “shepherds of a lot of voices that don’t know where else to go in a business that keeps getting smaller and smaller.”
This indie TV model also helps the brothers evade every creator’s biggest fear.
“Here’s the cool part: We become the studio, and no one can cancel us,” Duplass says. “A couple of people can say, ‘I don’t want to relicense you.’ That means we just have to go find another buyer. It removes the situation we have now, which is ‘I gave my heart and soul to this place, and they canceled me!’ Or God forbid: They made it, and didn’t even fucking release it.”