Independent film financing has been a staple in the movie world for more than half a century. Back then, filmmakers began to seek greater creative control outside the studio system and for the first time looked for inventive ways to finance their projects. However, for scripted television, it has historically been a different story, with only a few examples of shows getting off the ground without a commissioner committing to a decent chunk of the budget.
As streamers have reduced their spend over the last few years, some producers have opted to finance projects themselves. In the U.S., Duplass Brothers Productions, the maker of Togetherness and Room 104, has been among some of the key advocates for going it alone. The company’s founders Mark and Jay Duplass argue that breaking free of dependency on streaming financing offers both better opportunities for returns and “no creative boundaries.”
The company fully financed and retained the rights to shows such as the YA series Penelope, which was licensed to Netflix for the U.S. and has Fremantle attached as international distributor. Other companies are now looking at taking the same approach or finding other innovative indie models.
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Alexander Rodnyansky’s development company AR Content recently used an indie film model for the upcoming TNT limited series Debriefing the President, starring Joel Kinnaman. The LA-based outfit is also planning on using a similar structure for its next TV project, The Specialist, based on author John Shirley’s action-thriller series of the same name. Shirley’s novels, published under the pen name John Cutter, inspired the 1994 Warner Bros. film The Specialist, starring Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone.
There are a growing number of private financiers and indie producers who also believe in the model, including Amplify Pictures, the company based in LA and Amsterdam and led by former Amazon scripted executive Joe Lewis and ex-Netflix executive Rachel Eggebeen. It used an indie financing model for its Emmy-winning surfing doc series 100 Foot Wave, which is licensed to HBO, and has been spending much of 2025 attempting to apply the model to scripted. Deadline understands at least one show on its slate has come very close to fruition this year, although nothing has yet gone into production.
“The thing I find the riskiest is developing a show and going to pitch it in a traditional way,” says Lewis. “You can deliver a genius showrunner and a great idea, and it still won’t go. That’s the thing that turns my stomach.” He admits it has been “slow progress” selling the model to partners and adds that “it’s taking less time to explain.”
Others are going the same way, with Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn having recently boarded Swiss producer Katja Meier’s TV series $hare as an executive producer. Seehorn joined the project after seeing it at Denver’s SeriesFest, which is fast becoming a hotbed on the indie scene.
Meier says she was repeatedly told by production companies that the female protagonist in $hare was too old. She ignored requests to make her younger and instead made the pilot independently.
The series is now in pre-production. “We’re independent filmmakers and storytellers who create our own opportunities,” Meier says. “We didn’t wait for permission — we just went out and made the female-powered story we wanted to see on screen.”