★★★★★ 0/5

McLeod’s Daughters producers end Nine negotiations

Posie Graeme-Evans explains there were creative differences over a future vision, but hasn't ruled out crowd-sourcing.

7
Leave a comment

McLeod’s Daughters won’t be returning to Nine after creator Posie Graeme-Evans told fans via Facebook there were creative differences with a new series with Nine.

But she has not ruled out potentially crowd-funding her project.

“Sequels are tricky things – there’s so much at stake, so much passion involved in re-creating something we all know and love so much. However, here I am writing this post to you to let you know that our negotiations with the Nine Network in Australia and a third party, introduced to us by Nine – and for whom the Sequel mini-series would have been made, as it turned out – have now concluded because we’ve pulled out,” she wrote.

“Why? Well, creative differences happen all the time in our business – there’s no shame in that – and that’s been the case here.

“We feel that our potential new partners and ourselves turned out to see McLeods very differently; and, we were concerned that the tone and substance of the sequel story might alter too much from what people love about the series – and what they expect, too. This was not something we felt we could agree to. And, also, we didn’t want to let you down. That’s an emotional way of looking at what we do, I know, but making TV drama and especially McLeods, has always been like that for us.

“So, as of last week, we have respectfully declined to move forward with further negotiations. However we value our decades long relationship with Nine very much and at the beginning, when we first started talked about a reprise of the show, we all agreed that if things did not work out, we’d shake hands and part as friends. And that’s where we are today.

She added, “We’d so much rather that everyone who loves the show remembers McLeods Daughters as it was rather than make something that we, and you, in the end, didn’t believe in. No one is to blame. It’s just the way life works out sometimes.”

In a follow-up post she advised,  “Would I think of crowd-funding a possible sequel? Deep breath. Yes.

“Now… I know that tank traps abound – not least the network: they’d most likely have a fit and would have every right to stop us. Plus, we might not raise enough money (I’d need at least 3,000,000 maybe more to get us rolling), people just might not be interested enough, it could all fall on its face… and everything else you can think of that would make it just impossible.”

7 Responses

  1. Well it took Nine four years to give the green light to the original series despite the pilot telemovie rating through the roof. Clearly Nine were trying to get the “third party” to offset a good slice of the budget and this party, probably American, was going to make life hell for the producer who doesn’t really need the money and Nine itself would also meddle furiously. Fortunate to be able to walk away.

  3. Ten should do a Nine and take it on. For these shows to work they need to air them at a family friendly time. Starting them at 9pm is crazy. Personally l feel Ten need to air their shows at 7pm rather than the half hour.

  4. I presume Ms Grame-Evanas isn’t the outright owner of the brand, and can’t shop it around to any other network or streaming service who may be interested?

Leave a Reply