Roland Emmerich’s ‘Those About to Die’ | Prime Video

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Herbert G. Kloiber, Oliver Berben on Why They Joined Forces With AGC and the Producers of Roland Emmerich’s ‘Those About to Die’

Roland Emmerich’s gladiator drama “Those About to Die,” which Prime Video has acquired exclusive streaming rights for in several European territories, is an ambitious project creatively, but it also breaks new ground in business terms.

With a budget north of $150 million for a 10-episode first season, it is the most expensive independently produced European series ever. For Emmerich, the German filmmaker best known for blockbuster movies such as “Independence Day,” the show is a new departure as well as it is his first foray into television. He is directing the show alongside Marco Kreuzpaintner.

The project was initiated by Centropolis, Street Entertainment and Hollywood Gang along with Bob Rodat. It is inspired by the nonfiction book of the same name by Daniel P. Mannix, the rights to which were acquired by Hollywood Gang.

They brought it to their frequent collaborator AGC Television to act as the studio and worldwide distributor in early 2020. The parties further developed the project for approximately another year before AGC took the show to Peacock in early 2021 and made a U.S. license deal on behalf of itself and the three producers. At that time High End Productions took European rights; AGC Studios is selling rights for the rest of the world.

High End was only set up two years ago, but behind it are some of the most experienced players in the European film and TV business. The company is a joint venture set up by Herbert G. Kloiber, who headed German media giant Tele München Group for more than four decades, and German film and TV company Constantin Film, headed by Martin Moszkowicz and Oliver Berben. The managing director is Jonas Bauer, who previously worked at Tandem Productions, where he worked on big budget shows like “The Pillars of the Earth,” and French TV and film giant Studiocanal.

Key to the ambitious scale of “Those About to Die,” which stars Anthony Hopkins, is its adoption of an independent financing model. In Europe, for example, High End has sold the streaming rights to Prime Video in an exclusive window, but it is also selling free-TV rights territory by territory. This approach was integral to the project from the get-go, Berben tells Variety, and the plan “really played out fantastically.”

“When the project was set up the whole idea was not to just go to a single streamer and sell the worldwide rights, but to separate [the rights],” Berben says. This was done to allow Emmerich and Kreuzpaintner “to have the budget they want, and create the show that they want.”

Berben sees their success in raising this record-breaking budget as a “fantastic sign,” indicating what High End can achieve in the future. It is a particular achievement considering the “perfect storm,” in his words, that has struck the television business, with the traditional advertising-funded broadcast model challenged, and the subscription streaming model not yet proving to be the panacea that some had hoped for.

“We were able to not only cross that storm, but use it, and not just rely on one single partner, but through the situation that we had bring in the best contacts that we had in Europe and the U.S. [to help complete the show’s budget], and that enabled us all to create exactly the show [Emmerich and Kreuzpaintner wanted to create],” Berben says.

“For us as High End, it was a huge risk to go into that with such a large budget and investment that we took on. But it played out fantastically and is a clear sign that we have the chance to ‘fulfil our dreams,’ and go territory by territory, even though we did the European deal with Amazon for the first window.”

With regards to selling the free-TV window for the show, Berben adds: “We will take our time, especially because the free-TV market is in a huge shake up everywhere right now.”

Kloiber credits Emmerich as being a key driver for the show. “Roland pushed very hard. It’s his first foray into television, so that’s what intrigued me. Having done 45 years of theatrical distribution, I thought it would be wonderful to see somebody like Roland step into the ring with the huge budget we allowed him to show us his hand.”

“Those About to Die” enters an international television market that has seen few historical dramas on this scale since HBO’s “Rome,” which ran 2005-2007, although in the movie arena Ridley Scott is about to unleash “Napoleon” and “Gladiator 2.”

Kloiber says: “This is an outstanding kind of pitch that we will present to the clients and the viewers. One that hasn’t been seen a lot, at least not for a very long time. So, we felt that it has a very good, exclusive window in terms of dealing with that. Historically, World War One and Two and the 20th century have been done a great deal over the last couple of years. This show, I think, is quite exceptional, and will stand out when it’s ready in 2024 as a very unique flavor.”

Berben adds: “Everybody’s looking for an IP or a big brand, and here basically you have two things. First, you have one of the biggest IPs in cinema, which is Roland himself. The whole thing relies on a non-fiction book [by Daniel P. Mannix], but when Roland first pitched the show, you could immediately see this is not just a pure, realistic storytelling of Ancient Rome: it’s the Roland style of how everything’s going to look, you know, with large animals, huge races, violence… with everything larger than life. And that’s what makes it so interesting.”

“Second, you have Rome, gladiators and the Colosseum, which is also a parallel to what’s happening in today’s world. When Roland showed us the first ideas, it was basically to show the audience how close the distraction through games and sports in ancient times is to everything that’s going on today—it’s basically the same as when we’re watching a football game or a Formula One race, everybody’s waiting for something to happen and not necessarily something good. And that’s the same thing in Rome, and the Roman elite knew that in order to take the masses where they wanted them to go, they needed something like this, and this parallel makes the whole set up very modern. It’s not just a pure historical, ancient time story. It’s realizing that we’re doing today what has been there always, and then we make it really bigger than life like Roland and Marco are doing it right now.”