aTwist Launches With 10 Original Microseries and a Hollywood Founding Team
Led by Jana Winograde and Lloyd Braun with a third co-founder, and drawing on experience across Showtime, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Television, ABC and WME, aTwist is another major bet on vertical.
Another major Hollywood team is betting on verticals.
aTwist has launched with ten original microseries. Its founders, Jana Winograde, Lloyd Braun and a third partner, are veterans of Showtime, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Television, ABC Entertainment and WME. Reuters reported the launch; The Ankler published the first photographs.
Who is behind it
Braun previously led ABC Entertainment. Winograde was a senior executive at Showtime. This is not a founding team testing a side project; it is executives who ran traditional television deciding that the next thing worth building is vertical.
Their first slate reflects that. The October titles, fronted by Paris Hilton, Mario Lopez and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, are the most star-driven launch the format has seen.
The market question
Hollywood is no longer watching the vertical industry from the sidelines. The question the association keeps hearing is whether another major platform strengthens the industry or crowds an already packed market.
The association’s read: the market is crowded with platforms that compete on the same library of billionaire romances. It is not crowded with platforms that can attract A-list producers and talent, and that have the relationships to sell into traditional distribution. aTwist competes in the second category. If it succeeds, it raises the ceiling for everyone, including on pay and conditions, which tend to follow the platforms with the deepest relationships to the unions and guilds.