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How Heartbreak High returned to Australia via the Netherlands

It was a 1990s Aussie hit, but producers behind the Netflix reboot first had to bring the rights back home from abroad.

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To get the rights to reboot Heartbreak High, producers had to strike a deal with a Dutch based production company, Newbe.

Despite the show being an Australian creation of the 1990s, the ownership was sold to the Dutch company.

Executive Producer Carly Heaton says the unusual case of Australian IP having foreign ownership is “absolutely bonkers.”

“But it shows you the reach of the original. There was something in the essence…this combo of aspiration. They didn’t wear uniforms, they lived right near the beach and the city but they were still working class kids,” she told TV Tonight.

“(Co-creator) Ben Gannon sadly passed, of course, but his partner Brian Abel also worked on the show and (co-creator) Mike Jenkins helped us out in the early stages.”

The deal by Fremantle was secured by then-CEO Chris Oliver-Taylor during a London visit.

Since its launch Heartbreak High has hit #5 most watched TV shows globally on Netflix, and #1 in Australia.

Producers also made key changes from the original format.

“We added a series arc which you didn’t really have in the original that ran for 50 episodes. So there’s a six series arc and character arc across eight episodes,” she explained.

“They original was shot on film which was amazing and their style we did evolve and change. We wanted to go for a very high-end glossy look. We definitely wanted to push the boundaries a little bit there.”

The Netflix reboot retains much of the attitude of the original, if shifted to 2022 audiences.

“There’s an Australian brashness to it. It’s a little bit in your face, they’re a bit cheeky,” Heaton continued.

“We also wanted to make sure that we weren’t shying away from big themes as well, but deal with it in a very hopeful way. I think that’s what the original did. Yes they did drugs, sex, pregnancy, violence, racism, but you were always left with a sense of hope. That was really something that mattered a lot to us.

“In the research we did with kids before we started, there isn’t necessarily a light at the end of the tunnel -especially with stuff like climate change.”

Filming was also heavily impacted by COVID lockdowns in Sydney over summer with illness, rain, flooding and the first fatal shark attack in Sydney in 50 years near a filming location.

But there was an upside.

“Over the Christmas break, we made a call to put all the cast in the same accommodation together. Some had been staying in serviced apartments and we pulled all the local kids out of share houses and put them all into shared accommodation,” she revealed.

“They just socialised with each other for eight weeks, so they became this really tight gang, which I think helped on screen.”

In December Heartbreak High will compete for the AACTA Best Drama series while newcomer James Majoos and Thomas Wetherall are up for acting awards.

It was recently renewed for a second season.

Heartbreak High  is now screening on Netflix.

2 Responses

  2. It was a play, it was a film, it was relocated to Sydney as a Channel 10 spinoff. 10 cancelled it but the BBC, who had been airing it in the UK, commissioned more seasons. Ten bought the rights to those to air late at night to meet their drama quota. The BBC and ABC then made a couple more season as a 23 minute soap opera filmed on the Northern Beaches, before the BBC cancelled it. TV, even Austalian TV is made by global media companies who put in little of the money, retain global rights for distribution and sale for pretty much ever, and exert control over what does or doesn’t get made and creative decisions. This reboot uses none of the characters or stories from the original they bought the rights to (teacher student relationships being on of the few modern taboos), only the title. It could be any high school soap, anywhere in the world that has been influenced by Glee.

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