Aldis Hodge, producer and star of Cross, and Lauren Anderson, head of content and brand innovation at Amazon MGM Studios, say the value of the Prime Video series results from its local flavor.
When scripts for the Washington-set show underwent a “D.C. pass,” Hodge recalled, a producer hailing from the city insisted on a character calling another one “Slim,” as opposed to “son” or “dog,” as they might in other cities. “That one word generated, I would say, millions of viewership value,” Hodge said. “So many people commented and said, ‘The moment I heard “Slim” I was in.’”
Anderson said specific details can give a production “universality,” enabling it to be enjoyed by wider audiences. Hodge said Washington in particular gets reduced on screen to simple cutaways of the U.S. Capitol building or politcos walking down hallways. “We only see a political idea. Not a political truth, but just an idea. … That’s just one sector of what Washington, D.C. is.”
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The star and exec spoke Tuesday on a panel at CES at C-Space, the venue at the Las Vegas convention focused on advertising and marketing. Prime Video is about a year into running advertising during and around original series and films. While specifics about that effort weren’t a major part of the panel discussion, repeated references were made to advertisers gathered in the audience at the Aria hotel.
Cross debuted its first season last November and has already been renewed for a second. The title character, Alex Cross, is a police detective and forensic psychologist tracking a serial killer. While significant amounts of production occurred in Canada, it maintains the Washington, D.C. flavor of James Patterson’s series of books. Local haunts like Ben’s Chili Bowl are also locations used in shooting – Hodge said when he was told the last filming there had involved President Barack Obama, “I felt like we did something pretty good.”
Anderson, who cited GoodFellas as an all-time favorite film (“It just never gets old”) spoke about Amazon’s roots in bookselling and how that influences its approach to screen adaptations. “We take a lot of pride” in them, she said. “We’re really proud of the work we’ve done with IP adaptations. Part of that is really understanding that there’s a great core audience. … But the other part of it is that it gets people like us really excited. And it gets great showrunners excited.”