thanks to an interview from IGN Filmforce, we have some answers now concerning if Family Guy has a future or not. Unfortunately, it's not answers many will like, but we're not as in the dark about it as we were before.....
IGNFF: Even Family Guy – when you look at the success it's getting during Adult Swim – what are the odds of something like that going back into production? Or is there no real budget for that?
LAZZO: Well, it's a very, very complicated thing, and we actually are having conversations along those lines. It gets pretty complicated unless you can get a network partner, because they are just very expensive shows. For a cable network to pay production for a property that they do not own is crazy. It's less so for a network, because they get so much money from ads – but with cable we're just not there yet. So we're trying to figure out how that could actually happen.
IGNFF: What if there were a reduction to the time model we see in Sealab or Harvey Birdman – that sort of 11-minute episode?
LAZZO: First of all, because you are dealing with unions in L.A., it's very difficult to make this model work there. And it's not even the same show – if you're looking at a Futurama or a Family Guy, you're talking about writing staffs that are very often 10 or more people... much less just the animation itself... so very quickly you will, just in simple production, get to half-a-million dollars a half-hour. Compared to a Sealab or a Space Ghost, which is under $100,000 a half-hour. So just the economics of it are vastly different, and we can't theoretically charge more for these shows until they have a track records – so you've just got to figure out new ways to do it. But the best way to do that is find some partner. Unfortunately, most of the networks are a little gun-shy on animation right now. However, we may be able to make something happen, and we're trying real hard to do that because we know we need that.
IGNFF: How did the model work with producing more episodes of Home Movies? Was it just the way the production was done on it?
LAZZO: Yes. That's an inexpensive show. I mean, you can look at it and tell.
IGNFF: But to move away from squigglevision must have cost at least something...
LAZZO: Not really. By that time, they had figured out how to do Flash [animation] inexpensively, and Flash had grown up, so to speak, by that time. Secondly, we're not going to put money into the show unless we can actually own the show in the U.S. – instead of renting the show, so to speak. So the episodes that we've made, we can air forever. At that point, it becomes a part of our library, and you can actually start seeing money back. However, if we'd have paid full production and only had it for five years or so before we had to go back and pay more money, it wouldn't have been worth it. So in the case of Home Movies, we were able to make a deal because they were interested in continuing the show, and we were too. Fox doesn't have reason, at this point, to continue the production of the shows [Futurama & Family Guy]. They still have The Simpsons, they have King of the Hill... -----------------------------
So it sounds like the big reason they can't do it is because both shows are FOX property (btw, not even FOX themselves make shows owned by other companies anymore). And mr. Lazzo apparently doesn't want to force a show into a low budget status like their original programming. So the other option is to wrestle the rights from FOX, or find a "network partner" so to speak.
Strange how he mentions FOX has no interest in continuing Family Guy. And after all that fuss about a movie too.
- CMiB