TV Producers Married to Idea of Creating Series

American First Run Studios in Sherman Oaks has eked out a living producing about two TV movies a year and pulling in about $10 million in revenues annually. During its 14-year history, American First Run’s films have ranged from the serious (“Conspiracy: The Trail of the Chicago Eight”) to the silly (“Swimsuit,” “Tarzan in Manhattan”).

But making TV movies isn’t where the big money or the prestige is. Now the company, run by the husband-and-wife attorney team of Max and Micheline Keller, hopes to break into the TV series game, where the risks are high but so are the payoffs.

“There is big money to be made in series TV, and that’s the direction we’re going in,” said Max Keller, 45, American First Run’s chairman and co-owner along with his wife and their partner, writer/producer Charles Hairston.

A couple of Keller’s ideas are old ones that he’s dusted off, including a new “Tarzan” series that will pick up the story line from his “Tarzan in Manhattan” TV movie. Keller also has in mind an updated version of the old “Roy Rogers” show (with another actor playing Roy).

A newer idea is a series based on the “Mrs. Pollifax” books, which chronicle the tales of a spry grandmother who works for the CIA.

But winning a time slot on one of the networks’ regular schedules isn’t easy. Last fall, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox debuted just 24 new series--and so far the networks have said thanks but no thanks to the Kellers’ series ideas.

CBS, which ran the “Tarzan in Manhattan” TV movie, turned down the “Tarzan” series. And when Max Keller tried to sell an idea for a sitcom based on the “Li’l Abner” comic strip, “CBS thought that other series would be better,” he said. “I guess that’s just a nice way of saying it was rejected.”

Some in the entertainment industry say American First Run’s chances of success in TV series are slim. “For those who have never done a series before, it’s tough to impossible,” said Lew Hunter, former director of motion pictures and miniseries for NBC and now a professor at UCLA’s film and television school.

Larry Strichman, senior director of development for TV movies at CBS, called the Kellers “hard-working, professional producers.” But if the Kellers want to sell a series, he said, they would have to deal with a different group of people at the network who might question American First Run’s ability to handle the weekly grind.

“The realities of the schedule which series TV demands is so specific and so unique that it’s a challenge for any producer, no matter how respected in TV films, to establish in the TV series arena,” Strichman said.

Others note that the large up-front costs of developing a series, which include buying the services of high-paid writers with network experience, can bury a small company.

Howard Levy, a partner at the accounting firm Ernst & Young, said a production house typically needs $3 million to $5 million in capital to get a series off the ground.

Nonetheless, Wes Craven, writer/director of “Nightmare on Elm Street” fame who worked with the Kellers on their first film, “Stranger in Our House,” said he wouldn’t count the Kellers out. “Max is very determined about things like that, and he tends to accomplish what he sets out to do,” Craven said.

Keller maintained that American First Run is well able to raise enough money to produce a TV series. “We have lines of credit into the seven figures,” he said.

Even though the American networks have turned down the Kellers, the couple plans to break into the series market by first teaming up with outside programming outlets. Steven Maier, American First Run’s New York-based marketing consultant, said he’s about to close a deal with an as-yet-unnamed European network to produce and broadcast the new Tarzan series abroad. After that, he said, he hopes to sell the series in the United States, possibly to a cable network.

Maier called such deals “the wave of the future,” since many new and recently privatized foreign broadcasters are thirsty for product.

A few productions have already gone that route. The “Zorro” series that debuted in January on the cable network Family Channel is a co-production of U.S. and European companies. Another joint U.S.-European series was last year’s “A Fine Romance,” a tale of globe-trotting TV travel hosts which appeared briefly on ABC and in France and Britain.

But TV producer Leonard Hill, who did the “Rags to Riches” series, was doubtful such deals work in practice. “Co-productions is a great buzz word” because of the concept of appealing to several markets at once, Hill said. But he said that “A Fine Romance” was “a crashing failure.”

Hunter, the UCLA professor, speculated that American First Run is going abroad with its first series because it’s the only place left for it to go.

But Max Keller argued that American First Run can get its feet wet by producing series abroad. “As soon as the networks realize that we’re as valuable in the series arena as we are in the movie arena, they’ll grab ahold of us,” he asserted.

The Kellers took a circuitous route into the TV business. The couple was running a Beverly Hills law practice when, in 1975, Max Keller represented a client who was involved in a contract dispute over a film. Keller’s client won the rights to the film, and suddenly Keller became enmeshed in trying to distribute the movie, a process “that fascinated me,” he said.

The Kellers were so enamored of the entertainment business that they quit their law practice in 1976 and started Inter Planetary Pictures, a film distribution company, with a $5,000 investment from their law business. Their first contract was to distribute the Donny and Marie Osmond film, “Goin’ Coconuts.”

Two years later, the Kellers broke into producing TV movies with “Stranger in Our House,” a low-budget horror film starring Linda Blair. Keller said he paid $500 for the film rights to the book and co-wrote the script. Wes Craven--then an unknown--was the director. The Kellers changed the name of their company to American First Run in 1987 because, Keller said, he was tired of people asking if he only made science fiction movies.

Over the years, the Kellers have won critical acclaim for a few of their TV movies, including “A Summer to Remember,” starring Louise Fletcher; “Women of Valor,” with Susan Sarandon; and “Conspiracy: The Trail of the Chicago Eight,” with Peter Boyle and Elliott Gould. They also produced the miniseries “Kent State,” for which director James Goldstone won an Emmy in 1981.

But the schlocky films have been the most successful. “Swimsuit,” which Micheline Keller described as “Gidget goes to modeling school,” won the ratings contest for the night when it ran during the networks’ “sweeps” period in February 1989 on NBC. “Tarzan In Manhattan,” which starred California model Joe Lara in the loincloth role, and “The Secret Life of Kathy McCormick,” a Barbara Eden comedy, also did well in the ratings.

“I think everyone recognizes you have to do commercial projects to keep your doors open,” Max Keller said.

Keller added that he plans to keep doing TV movies and has a project in development for Turner Network Television based on the life of Sigmund Freud.

But he said there’s not a huge amount of money to be made doing TV movies. Networks typically pay about 90% of the production costs up front, and the production company makes a profit when the film is rerun in the United States or sold in other markets. But residuals must be paid to writers, actors and directors, and it might take several years before a film breaks even.

“You may be left with a few hundred thousand dollars, or you may be left with nothing for many years,” said Keller.

American First Run has managed to squeak by with a profit, he said, by keeping a tight lid on costs--a typical TV movie budget runs about $3 million--and by trying to pick movies that will hold up in reruns.

The Kellers keep only 12 staff members on a permanent basis, boosting the payroll only when the company is in production.

While Keller said the key to a successful TV show is the idea, he admitted that those ideas can sometimes bring trouble.

In 1985, Madonna sued the Kellers for $10 million to try to stop them from making a film entitled “Madonna.” Even though the movie’s story line was unrelated to the pop star, “she was claiming she was the owner of the word ‘Madonna,”’ Keller said. A federal judge in New York disagreed, but the Kellers renamed it anyway. The movie, now called “Devil Woman,” is still in development.