‘Colin From Accounts’ Producers Rob Gibson And Ian Collie On The Hit Comedy’s Second Season, Signing With CAA & Challenges For Streaming In Australia

Jesse Whittock
·9 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Producers Ian Collie and Rob Gibson are best known for helping bring an injured mongrel dog into the global consciousness in Colin From Accounts. Ahead of a busy 2024, the pair sat down with Deadline to chat about plans for their Easy Tiger Productions imprint, the state of TV in Australia and signing with CAA.

And where else to start, but with Colin From Accounts, Australian streamer Binge’s romantic sitcom series written by and starring real-life couple Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer. Over the weekend, the critically acclaimed show, winner of the Most Outstanding Comedy Program at the Logies, went into production on Season 2 after a delay primarily caused by the U.S. writers strike.

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Gibson was first alerted to what would become Colin just after leaving his post as Head of Originals at Binge rival Stan. “Harriet had given me the script as a writing sample for another show,” he recalls. “When I joined Collie at Easy Tiger, I showed it to him and he laughed uproariously, so the first call was to find out what Harriet and Pat wanted to do with that script. Next, we called Binge and said, ‘Let’s do this.'”

The pair recall how it wasn’t an immediately obvious sale. “Comedy has traditionally been difficult in Australia, with only the ABC really making them, but since the streamers have come in there are new opportunities,” says Gibson. Ultimately, “the geniuses at Foxtel-Binge — Alison Hurbert-Burns and the late Brian Walsh — recognized the quality of the package,” he adds.

“Brian was a great champion of the show — it was the last that delivered under his tenure,” he adds of the much-loved executive, who passed away unexpectedly in March. “Ali is continuing that legacy there with Amanda Laing.”

CBS Studios was on board from the beginning, and Gibson says “the whole CBS and Paramount Global team have really been instrumental in helping us make this the huge hit it is.”

Colin launched a year ago on Binge. It’s the story of an unorthodox couple who unite over the love of a dog mistakenly injured when Ash (Dyer) flashes a breast at Gordon (Brammall) as he’s driving. Buzz began internationally at the LA Screenings in 2022, with buyers noting how a small, Australian drama appeared to be the hot ticket of the sales week. Paramount Global Content Distribution has gone on to sell it to the BBC in the UK and Paramount+ in the U.S.

Photo of Patrick Brammall as Gordon and Harriet Dyer as Ashley in Colin From Accounts
Patrick Brammall as Gordon and Harriet Dyer as Ashley in ‘Colin From Accounts’

In reality, Dyer and Brammall did own an injured rescue dog, though the car accident and flesh-bearing is a work of fiction. “Colin is a show about the terrible things that can go wrong if you see someone attractive doing something unusual on the street, and it’s been a wonderful journey,” says Collie.

Tiger blood

Collie and Gibson are veteran program and filmmakers with decades of experience between them. Collie, a producer on Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson-starrer Saving Mr Banks, had launched Easy Tiger in 2017 after Fremantle bought the drama division of Essential Media, which he led. His credits include adapting Peter Temple’s Jack Irish novels for TV and developing and producing five seasons of Rake, which was remade in the U.S. for Fox. A film and TV producer and founding executive of Nine Network-backed streamer Stan, Gibson counts the likes of No Activity (where Brammall and Dyer first met), Wolf Creek and Bloom on his commissioning CV.

He joined Collie in 2019. The pair already had a long-term working relationship and that has been key to Easy Tiger’s recent success as a true independent. “By the time Covid hit, we had split with Fremantle,” says Gibson. “We still have a really good working relationship together and to their full credit, they were very good about us deciding to move on. We are an indie at heart and we like to work with different people, talent and distributors: Horses for courses. We like being the Aussie indie, really.”

Indeed, since Easy Tiger launched, it has been one of Australia’s most prolific drama and comedy producers, pumping out seasons of Rake and Jack Irish for the ABC, SBS miniseries Sunshine, Nine’s soapy medical drama Doctor Doctor, Audible podcast show Pillow Talk and Binge’s Sam Neill legal drama The Twelve, which is getting a second season.

Among the prodco’s newer shows are Paramount+ ANZ drama One Night, starring Jodie Whittaker, Yael Stone and Nicole da Silva. Buzzy drama Scrublands, a TV adaptation of Chris Hammer’s novel for Stan that we revealed back in February, launched in November and marks another sale to the BBC, this time via distributor Abacus Media Rights. Soon to launch is SBS drama Four Years, which is being billed locally as an “Indian Normal People” from Mithila Gupta (Five Bedrooms) and has an all-South Asian writing team. “It really showcases diversity and migrant Australia,” says Gibson.

Yet Scrublands is not the only new title on the horizon, with projects in development in Australia and the UK. “Chris Hammer, the author of Scrublands, has another treasure trove of books, and we look forwards to building “the ‘Hammerverse,’ as we’re calling it,” adds Collie, half-jokingly. “We love working with him on his material. He has such a huge number of fans across the world.”

Director Greg McLean with actors Luke Arnold, Bella Heathcote and Jay Ryan
‘Scrublands’ director Greg McLean with leads Luke Arnold, Bella Heathcote and Jay Ryan

Easy Tiger’s hot streak has been such that Hollywood has come calling. In October, the company signed with CAA after a record-breaking six awards at the 2023 Logies, with mega agency set to help take the company’s shows to the U.S. and structure international projects. “It’s a recognition we’re operating in a global business,” says Gibson.

“In Australia, we’ve always needed a decent chunk of money to get shows financed — we rely on tax rebates and public funding and there’s always been an international element,” he adds. “However, over the last few years, the production values are going up across the board, so it’s harder to work on traditional Australia budgets in a global streaming context and we have to look for more money from other places.

“The more business and partnerships we can forge internationally with everybody, prominently showcasing what we can do in Australia, the better. Our moment is starting to happen here after a long time. We’ve always looked to the UK and the incredible drama and comedy fostered there, and it strikes us as odd we haven’t managed to do the same. It’s all about creating awareness — maybe that Australian tide is now coming. We’ve known Mike [Gordon] and Ted [Miller] at CAA for a long time and it just made total sense to us.”

Bigger budgets and international interest

Easy Tiger’s flexible approach to dealmaking has led to several different types of commissions. Scrublands, for example, is a ‘traditional’ local commission with government funding support and international distributor investment. “The difference between this and what Australian producers were doing a few years ago is we’re getting more interest internationally and we’ve able to leverage that into bigger budgets and hopefully deliver on that investment with higher production values,” says Gibson. “Touch wood, that’s what we’ve been able to do.”

On another track, One Night is a straight co-production with the UK’s Motive Pictures, while upcoming Netflix series Desert Kings (working title) is a mega-budget global order that recently wrapped shooting in the the remote Northern Territory and South Australia. It’s being billed as the priciest series to ever come out of Southern Australia.

Interest in Australian content has indeed been growing globally, moving the country beyond simply a good place to shoot sprawling landscapes and tap into local tax credits. Six-part neo-Western drama Desert King is a good example. A co-production with fellow Sydney production house Ronde, the Tim Lee (Mystery Road, Bump) and Ben Davies-created series explores the generational clashes that threaten to tear apart the family owners of the world’s largest cattle station after it is left without a clear successor.

“We’re just about finished with our shoot and going into post-production. It is the definition of that next-level Australia drama operating at a global level,” says Gibson.

The timing of the commission, announced as part of a slate unveiled in August, isn’t coincidental. The U.S. labor strikes further consolidated the power of overseas productions in the eyes of the U.S. studios and streamers, with those who can deliver on big, expansive ideas now able to get ideas away — even in the new era of more measured spending.

“What we saw during the strikes was that the issues they were facing over there were the results of global forces affecting Hollywood finances,” he adds. “There is a recognition that we are now all playing in the same water and the borders are a bit more porous, to mix metaphors.”

And though the strikes did hit Australia (both Colin and The Twelve slowed for Easy Tiger, while the likes of Peacock’s Apples Never Fall shut down), Collie says there was a “clear distinction between local commissions and Hollywood productions shooting in Australia.”

However, he does admit that “some of our top writers and actors were a bit spooked and scared of being blacklisted. If you want to work in Hollywood, you want to do the right things. At the same time, we all have separate industries that have to continue to function.”

Sam Neill and Kate Mulvany in ‘The Twelve’
Sam Neill and Kate Mulvany in ‘The Twelve’

Coming up next year, Australia has industry issues of its own. The country is a microcosm of global debate around streaming regulation. In January, plans to bring in quotas on the international and local streamers were announced, though the shape of this remains up in the air. Netflix, Stan and co all reject the need for government intervention, while the Screen Producers Association, which represents most of the prodcos, has passionately called for it.

“While we support the push, we’re in the fortune position in that we are one of the most productive companies at the moment,” says Collie.

How this all plays out will be fascinating and international eyes will be watching. In the meantime, Collie and Gibson have a rare global bona fide hit on their hands.

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