Shōgun
Originally posted to: chenmark.com/weekly-thoughts
This year, during our copious amounts of spare time, we enjoyed watching?Shōgun, the Hulu/FX hit series.? Unlike a lot of TV these days, Shōgun actually required some brainpower to watch, not just because the show is mostly in subtitles, but because of the subtle?power dynamics on display?in “The Japans”.? A?lot of other people liked the show, as it won 18 of its 25 Emmy nominations, making it the most awarded single season of television in Emmy history.??
It turns out?that today’s series was based on the best-selling?1975 James Clavell novel?of the same name.? Furthermore, the novel had already been adapted into a?television miniseries in 1980, which was also a hit, winning 8 of its 13 Emmy nominations.? As new viewer, it seems we’re a little late to the party.?
We learned this when reading the excellent?Who is Michael Ovitz?? Ovitz is a talent agent who co-founded the powerhouse?Creative Artists Agency?(CAA) in 1975.? As recounted in the story, he was introduced to?Clavell, who had recently written Shōgun, a sprawling historical novel about an English naval pilot shipwrecked in seventeenth-century Japan.? The catch: the novel was twelve hundred pages, which alarmed the studios.? Undeterred, Ovitz decided to read it himself.? From the book:??
“I packed the paperback on a weekend ski trip. At first, I struggled to keep the dozens of characters straight and to pierce the thicket of Japanese names, but by page eighty I was hooked. When Judy got annoyed that I was responding only by grunts, I ripped out the first chapter and passed it over. We spent a few hours on the slopes and the rest on the couch, literally tearing through Shōgun.”?
Inspired by the book, Ovitz initially tried to package the book as a movie to Paramount, but the storyline was too unwieldy and the deal fell apart.? Ovitz then iterated, positioning the project as a television miniseries, which was quite a novel format in the 1980’s:?
“Only a miniseries, I insisted, could do justice to Shogun’s scope and sweep. With the author’s extremely doubtful approval, Bill Haber and I went to Paramount to meet with Michael Eisner and Gardy Nardino, who ran the studio’s television division.? Gary was eager to bring the project to the networks. We began at ABC, our best buyer, but they turned us down.? CBS said the same thing: ‘We don’t think Americans care much about Asia.'”
Finally, Ovitz found a kindred spirit in the Head of TV Movies at NBC, who read Shōgun and was a fan of the miniseries idea.? The project, however, was not without its challenges.? From the book:?
“Her faith was tested when the new writers adopted the perspective of John Blackthorne, the British sailor trapped in the East. To make Blackthorne’s bewilderment hit home, they had the Japanese characters speak in Japanese without subtitles. It was avant-garde for prime time, but we backed the writers and Deanne backed us.”?
The miniseries debuted in September 1980 and was an immediate hit.? It won numerous awards, inspired many best-selling adaptions, and helped?set off a craze for sushi?in America.? Ovitz reflects on the experience:?
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“Shogun had languished at William Morris for three years. CAA got it made. Never mind that the deal almost fell apart twenty times, deals always almost fell apart twenty times. That was the first time we took a client’s far-fetched dream and made it come true.”?
This story is a great reminder that in business, as in entertainment, interesting outcomes don’t just happen; they are painstakingly crafted, often through sheer force of will.? Interesting things need unwavering champions who don’t quit in the face of adversity.? Champions know that projects almost fall apart before coming together and persist accordingly.? They understand that most things are nothing until they are something.? And,?as Toranaga knows,?most things don’t come easily.
Have a great week,
Your Chenmark Team