Concept to greenlight, in seven stages — two of them hard gates
Most development processes are transparent about the stages that exist and quiet about which ones actually stop a project. Ours doesn't hide it: two stages carry real veto power, and neither can be skipped under deadline pressure.
Concept & originality check
Every concept is registered and put through a genuine originality pass before it's classified into one of the five content tracks. Derivative ideas are flagged here, early, rather than discovered by a buyer later.
Creative & story architecture
Hook strength and story-engine durability are pressure-tested with a specific question: does this survive more than one season, and does the premise still hold once the initial gimmick has worn off. A striking first episode idea with nowhere to go gets flagged here, not in a commissioner's notes.
Commercial & market intelligence Hard Gate
A minimum threshold of named, real buyers must be identified before commercial conversations start — not a category claim like "streamers are buying this genre," but specific platforms, specific commissioners, specific evidence of appetite. A project without a credible, named buyer landscape does not advance past this stage.
Platform & distribution strategy
Platform fit and territory sequencing are mapped honestly, including an adaptation checklist for anything intended to travel internationally — what changes for a US remake, what a format bible needs to specify for a licensee to execute it correctly elsewhere.
Production architecture & packaging
Cost modelling and talent assessment are checked for realism, not ambition — does the budget the project needs actually match the budget the market for this track will support. This is where a beautiful but unproduceable concept gets caught.
Legal, IP & rights architecture Hard Gate
Full chain of title, rights stack, and IP ownership must be cleared and documented before a project proceeds. This is resolved here, deliberately early, so a fast-moving deal is never stalled at the point of sale by paperwork that should have been sorted months earlier.
Final greenlight & commercial readiness
A genuine greenlight-probability assessment and buyer-pressure architecture are prepared — meaning the package that reaches a commissioner has already survived every hard question our own team could throw at it internally, days or weeks before the buyer asks the same ones.
Full stage-by-stage detail, including the specific criteria each specialist function checks against, is covered in the Entertainment Development Bible — shared with production partners and prospective buyers under NDA.
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