Marty Adelstein & Becky Clements On More ‘Snowpiercer’, ‘One Piece’ S2 As Tomorrow Studios Turns 10 & Adelstein Inks New ITV Studios Deal

In January 2023, Deadline reported that Snowpiercer‘s completed fourth and final season would not run on TNT as part of content tax write-offs by the network’s parent Warner Bros. Discovery and that producer Tomorrow Studios was shopping the new season, along with potential prequel and sequel. Almost a year and a half later, Season 4 of Snowpiercer landed at AMC and will debut this Sunday, July 21, with a Comic-Com panel to follow five days later.

In an interview with Deadline last week, Marty Adelstein, CEO of Tomorrow Studios, which he launched in June 2014 as a joint venture with ITV Studios, and the company’s President Becky Clements discussed finding a new U.S. home for the post-apocalyptic drama starring Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly, which has been sold internationally by ITV Studios, and franchise expansion plans.

The duo also provided updates on Season 2 of Tomorrow Studios’ Netflix hit One Piece, based on Eiichiro Oda’s beloved manga, which recently started production in Cape Town. With Clements speaking from Cape Town and Adelstein from Los Angeles, they discussed maintaining the show’s signature look while filming through the South African winter as well as the Season 2 production schedule and new cast additions, confirming that Jamie Lee Curtis will not be in it.

Adelstein and Clements also touched upon the ongoing Hollywood contraction and selling The Better Sister through it, with their next series, Bad City, going out next.

Additionally, as their company crosses the 10-year mark, Adelstein and Clements shared their ideas for the future of Tomorrow Studios as Adelstein revealed that he has just signed another five-year deal with ITV Studios to continue at the helm of the joint venture.

The two also shared their experience reuniting with Tim Allen for his multi-camera ABC pilot Shifting Gears, and Adelstein had an update on the new Prison Break series in the works at Hulu.

Saving ‘Snowpiercer’

DEADLINE: How did you get Snowpiercer back and why did you go with AMC as its new home?

ADELSTEIN: I got a call over Christmas the year before offering us to buy back Snowpiercer. This was when Max was cutting everything out, taking the tax write-offs. Ultimately, TNT offered a generous price, so we bought it back from them and took it out. I think that AMC made the most sense because they focus on franchises, and they’re really good with it, and with Snowpiercer there’s a sequel and a prequel based on the graphic novels. So, AMC was our first choice.

CLEMENTS: And their shows have a muscularity to them that we think this series fits well with their lineup. We were so proud of Season 4, the show, the people involved, [showrunner] Paul Zbyszewski, Christoph Schrewe, who’s an incredible producing director, and this cast. We were dogged in our pursuit of finding a great partner for us because it deserves to have its old fans and new fans see this wonderful season we made.

DEADLINE: Why did it take so long to find a new home? I felt like with the strikes last year interrupting the content pipeline, there would be a demand for finished projects.

ADELSTEIN: Everything was so much in flux that nobody was willing to make a commitment at that time. And then once things got to the point where there was no product and people were out looking for something like this, this was sort of the unicorn premium that was in the market.

CLEMENTS: We had two offers that just weren’t the right fit.

DEADLINE: You mentioned a potential prequel and sequel, and going with AMC because of their track record of building universes with The Walking Dead and Anne Rice. Is another installment a real possibility if Season 4 does well?

CLEMENTS: Yeah, they have mentioned that’s a great proposition for us to find a good prequel or sequel to go with the original. So that’s something we’ll definitely work on. We have some material, but we think we’ll build it out with AMC, assuming that the rollout will be a big success.

DEADLINE: AMC has released a trailer for Season 4 featuring new cast additions Clark Gregg and Michael Aronov, billing it as the closing act and a new beginning for humanity. What more can you tease about the new season?

CLEMENTS: It’s the idea of choice. There are people who believe that there is a risk involved with both avenues. You stay on the Snowpiercer and ultimately, it will probably start to come undone but there is a lot of research being done that becomes important to the future. And then there’s another group that believes that it’s time to try to populate the Earth because we’ve found a little bit of a weather bubble where it is inhabitable.

So it’s two noble causes that are living in two different areas and that breaks up relationships and brings new people together. Then we discover that there is an additional threat that no one was aware of. And it becomes about warning the other group about a bigger threat that exists and that’s where Clark Gregg and Michael Aronov come in.

DEADLINE: Have you gotten any information on how the catch-up viewing of the first three seasons is going on AMC+?

CLEMENTS: We’ve been told they’re very happy; they don’t reveal a lot but we’ve definitely been in touch with them, and their audience seems to be pretty vocal about their excitement.

To The Grand Line

DEADLINE: Becky, you’re in South Africa, how is production going on One Piece, are you in Week two or three?

CLEMENTS: Three. And we have a lot of rain, but that’s okay. This group here is incredible across the board, these actors, the production designers, the stunt team, the VFX team, the AD team alone, the things they have to balance. We typically prep and shoot multiple episodes at the same time so you often have two units going; the way you have to split your actors and your stunts teams. We are building sets on stage, we’re also on location quite a bit.

I think we’re between 900 and 1,200 people strong, and the level of creativity and professionalism in wardrobe, hair and makeup, Jaco [Snyman], our prosthetics person, it’s inspiring. These people are some of the best I’ve ever worked with. And this IP, Oda’s brain is so fertile and unique that everyone is invigorated every day of like, How are we going to do this, and folks who’ve been at this for awhile, you can just feel the almost childlike excitement about trying to pull it off.

DEADLINE: You mentioned rain. I know you had to make adjustments because you’re filming during the winter there, which is not ideal. How will that impact what we see, will there be more interior shooting, did you have to pull back on some of those great, blue-sky visuals that we saw in Season 1?

CLEMENTS: No, we will absolutely maintain the creative and all the exteriors and blue sky and visual effects. We recently moved something to the interior, and we agreed that in the end, that interior scene doesn’t feel as dynamic as we need it to. We’ll find a place on the schedule when our weather gets better to shoot it again.

Netflix, they understand, they are good partners when we have to make those last-minute decisions. July, August are the tougher months, and we adjusted our schedule so that the majority of our exterior stuff will shoot closer to the end of the year, summer.

DEADLINE: What is your schedule? When do you plan to have the season finished?

CLEMENTS: This is a very VFX heavy year so it’s going to be a while. We are a long time out.

DEADLINE: In terms of production, when do you finish filming?

CLEMENTS: We film into December.

DEADLINE: There have been announcements about new Season 2 cast additions, with Smoker, Brogy, No. 5, No. 9 and No. 3 among notable new characters. What can you tell us about how they fit into the storyline for next season?

CLEMENTS: The fact that you are naming villains with numbers gives you a pretty good idea of what we’re covering in this season, if you look at the chapters. [Showrunner] Matt [Owens], and Joe Tracz, who’s our new co-showrunner, are great partners, very aligned in all aspects of the series. They have it all mapped out, and Oda has been very involved again this season, so that’s been great.

DEADLINE: In an interview last fall, you mentioned, possibly a little in jest, that you have a plan for at least six seasons of One Piece with all the source material that you have (There are 1,100 chapters in the manga). Is this still that case? How far ahead are you in the planning?

CLEMENTS: We have those plans. Matt Owens has it in his head, it’s just a matter of our partners who’ve been amazing, wanting to keep moving forward, but we are creatively prepared, I’ll say that.

DEADLINE: To go at least six seasons?

CLEMENTS. We have multiple seasons that we can talk about.

DEADLINE: Is Jamie Lee Curtis joining the series this season? There was some back-and-forth on social media, and she appeared excited to play Doctor Kureha.

CLEMENTS: She loves the show. She has too many films and TV shows that she’s going into production on so our production dates aren’t going to work. She definitely wanted to do it but she’s got deals in first position, and it just became complicated.

DEADLINE: Is somebody playing Kureha in Season 2 or are you holding back on that character for Season 3?

CLEMENTS: We have found an amazing person.

Tim Allen Reunion & ‘Prison Break’ Reboot

DEADLINE: Shifting gears for a moment away from Tomorrow Studios to the Tim Allen ABC comedy pilot, Shifting Gears, which you are executive producing having also exec produced Allen’s previous sitcom, Last Man Standing. You both started in broadcast television, and now you are returning to network comedy. Talk about that and working with Tim Allen again.

ADELSTEIN: After we did nine years, 194 episodes of Last Man Standing, it was such a good relationship, and we have such a fondness for Tim Allen that we couldn’t say no.

It’s not our traditional model, and it’s been funny going back to traditional television, being on a sitcom set, which is where I grew up and Becky grew up. It was pretty strange. It was like deja vu all over again. it was like, wow, we’re sitting here on a sitcom. There’s so few of them.

CLEMENTS: It was exciting. We love that genre.

ADELSTEIN: It was like being back to my happy place where I used to spend every Wednesday and Friday night throughout my career. And you realize, when you get somebody like Tim Allen who lives for this and does this, what an American art form the sitcom is, and it’s now becoming a lost art form.

CLEMENTS: It was an electric night [at the pilot taping]. His chemistry with some of the actors that we had, his timing, John Pasquin’s direction, the audience went crazy for all the good reasons, great writing and performances. It’s very good. And I don’t often say that, but it’s very good.

DEADLINE: I’ve heard good things about the pilot’s pickup chances. When are you expecting to get a decision?

CLEMENTS: I don’t know, I would imagine soon. They don’t seem to have a ton of stuff that they’ve done but we’ve heard positive things too.

DEADLINE: Tomorrow Studios has been producing exclusively for cable/streaming. After re-immersing yourself in the network world with Shifting Gears, would you be interested in doing more traditional network fare or is that not part of your model?

ADELSTEIN: Where appropriate. We’re not non-writing producers for hire so that makes it a difficult thing. This was a one-off because it was Tim. So if it were appropriate, and we could do co-pros and things like that, we would definitely consider that.

DEADLINE: Marty, you also are an executive producer on another pre-Tomorrow Studios title, Prison Break, which helped convince Oda to grant you the One Piece rights. How’s the development of the new Prison Break installment with writer Elgin James going at Hulu?

ADELSTEIN: It’s going really well. The first script was really, really well done. They’ve given notes and it looks like it’s on its way.

True Crime Expansion

DEADLINE: Thriller series The Better Sister, starring Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks, came together pretty quickly. It was among the first projects taken out after the strikes, it landed at Amazon and by June it was already in production. How did you manage to do it so fast and how is filming going?

ADELSTEIN: What we did was, we wrote all the scripts and had them ready to go. So there wasn’t a decision of development or things like that. You either wanted to make the show or not make the show, and Amazon really fell in love with it. It moved very quickly because we had the scripts. We’re not afraid to do things like that, we write a lot in-house, depending on the IP and the writer, and it helps to move these things along.

CLEMENTS: Olivia [Milch] and Regina [Corrado] had four scripts and then we said, we love this so much and we knew the strike was coming, so we asked them, would you be willing to write the remaining four because we could move quickly and they, because they’re so talented and lovely, said no problem.

When we had the scripts, we went to [director-producer] Craig Gillespie, we have a deal with him, and he said I’m on board. We took it out with the scripts, Regina, Olivia and Craig. Amazon, jumped in with a series order. Then we found great actors in Jessica and Elizabeth Banks and we were off to the races.

We’re done with episode one. I just got a text from Craig to ask how long he can have Episode 1 be, and then we’re in episode two-three block. So we’re approaching the halfway point. We’ll be done in October.

DEADLINE: You also have Bad City, about the USC Med School Dean scandal, in development. Along with The Better Sister, it marks the company’s foray into a new genre, true crime. What prompted that move, and how is Bad City progressing?

CLEMENTS: Bad City we’re in the middle of. We have a fantastic script, we’re actually in the marketplace now. Ed Solomon, Dawn Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin are the writers; we have the material we’re pitching the series shortly.

We read the book and went crazy for it. We were in a very competitive situation and, we just let [the book’s author] Paul Pringle know that we would do everything we could to package it with an undeniable group of writers, and that’s currently very active.

The one thing perhaps that happened naturally is, we have a significant amount of what we call world-building IP, meaning shows that take quite a bit of time and development commitment — a lot of our Japanese IP and Korean with some pretty big auspices. So we felt like we had a lot of that, and I think naturally we were looking for different types of television shows to develop.

ADELSTEIN: We’re opportunistic in that way, and we’re lucky that we can go from a Physical at Apple to Bad City and then to One Piece, it just makes it interesting. Our motto is, if it’s interesting, and it would make good television, and it doesn’t pander to the audience, we’re willing to take a shot with it.

Turning 10, Staying Put & Scaling Up

DEADLINE: Ten years into your run with Tomorrow Studios, where do you see the company going? Are you planning to stay with ITV Studios? Many people get to a critical mass, sell and move on.

ADELSTEIN: I just signed a new five-year deal with ITV so I don’t plan to move on. They’ve been the greatest partners, they are very collaborative. If it’s something we’re passionate about, they usually approve it. We work really well together. I’m going to be here till I drop.

It’s not the plan to sell it. At some point, everybody sells. It was under a sales process but ITV is so happy with it. They’re not looking to sell or move on.

DEADLINE: And Becky, you are also committed to staying on with the company?

CLEMENTS: Yes, Marty has been the best.

ADELSTEIN: I’ve started a couple of companies. This is the most fun I’ve ever had. I love going into the office every day. I love the people who work with us. It’s evolved in a very organic way, we develop in house. Nic Louie started as my assistant, then said to me, do you know anything about anime? All of a sudden we’re going to Japan. Now he’s the senior vice president of the company. I’m so proud of him. I’m really proud of everybody here.

So the evolution has been really, really the way you’d want it to be; there have been very few hiccups along the way. I love the way we adjust to things and move from thing to thing; it’s just really been a delightful experience.

DEADLINE: What is your plan for the next decade — any areas that you want to go, anything you haven’t accomplished yet? Do you want to scale up?

ADELSTEIN: I think we will scale it up a bit. The problem is we’re producers. So when a show goes, we’re on set. Becky went from New York on Better Sister to South Africa. So we want to scale up to a point where development still goes on and is smooth even though we’re producing three or four shows.

The truth is we’re very lucky. There’s a lot of people out there that are having such problems with the entertainment industry.

Feeling The Contraction & Looking For Laughs

DEADLINE: I assume you mean the ongoing contraction. You were able to sell The Better Sister at the height of it but being an independent seller, how’s the current marketplace treating you?

ADELSTEIN: It’s interesting, and Becky may have a different perspective. It’s harder, definitely harder. They’re buying less. But if you’ve got something compelling that they want, they will buy it. Some of the middling shows are harder to sell, and we don’t tend to develop those.

CLEMENTS: Also, we don’t stop. If we get a ‘no’ now, maybe in three months, if there’s turnover, we’ll go back in. We are persistent — wait you liked 70% of this, can we work on the 30% that you need to greenlight. As long as we’re in the same creative realm, we’re willing to do that. The easiest thing in the world is to say ‘no’ in this business, so we try to turn that around.

DEADLINE: Any genres that are on your wish list that you haven’t done yet at Tomorrow Studios?

CLEMENTS: I’d like to do action-adventure. And I’d like a great, critically acclaimed single-camera comedy.

ADELSTEIN: I’d say comedy. We both come from comedy and we miss that.