Yahoo Movies ‘Below Deck’: Hit Bravo Reality Franchise Set To Sail Off With More Spinoffs In The Works
EXCLUSIVE: Below Deck, the hit Bravo reality franchise, is set to take to the seas with more spinoffs in the works as the franchise continues to make headway.
Deadline understands that NBCUniversal is in the early stages of developing two more spinoffs – a show set around Australia and one set around Iceland.
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The Australia-set season is being produced by Banijay-owned producer 51 Minds Entertainment, which is behind the original show and its two existing spinoffs, Below Deck: Sailing Yacht and Below Deck: Mediterranean.
The original series chronicles the lives of crew members who work on and live aboard a superyacht during charter season.
Interestingly, the Iceland-set series is being developed by Warner Bros-owned Shed Media. It’s not unusual for different production companies to produce various spinoffs of a network’s hit franchise in the U.S., given that cable networks often own the rights to shows. This has happened with Bravo’s The Real Housewives franchise as well as a slew of series on VH1 such as Love & Hip Hop.
Rod Aissa, EVP Unscripted, Documentary & Lifestyle, told Deadline recently that he considers Below Deck a “perfect” reality series.
“You have people coming in for a week, so there’s always new characters that come in, in terms of the guests,” he said. “You have a crew that is getting to know each other, and relationships are evolving over the course of the season. You have these drop-dead gorgeous backdrops — you just want to be there, and you want to be on the boat, and you want it to be served by these great people that are running the boat.”
He added that in the future, Below Deck shows could air on Bravo or on other NBCU platforms such as Peacock. “I’m addicted to Below Deck,” he said. “There’s not enough of them that I could watch. I want to go to all of these places.”
Below Deck launched in 2013 and just aired its eighth season. Below Deck: Mediterranean has five seasons and Below Deck: Sailing Yacht, which follows the crew on a 177′ sailing yacht, recently produced its Coratia-set second season during the pandemic.
51 Minds President Christian Sarabia recently told Deadline that the franchise is a “monster.”
“It’s just the ultimate reality show,” he said. “We always talk about producers always want to create bubbles and put people in situations. There’s no better bubble than a ship that you can’t leave if you’re going to get in the middle of a fight and the furthest you can run is the front of the bow. It’s really an Upstairs, Downstairs or the reality version of Downton Abbey.”
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