Wonder Women of Los Angeles 2024: Beatrice Springborn
Beatrice Springborn grew up thinking she would be a journalist: More specifically, a foreign correspondent for a prestigious newspaper. But in 2001 she landed a job at Pixar as a development executive.
At Pixar, Springborn quickly realized she had found her calling in production. Two decades later, in 2020, Springborn became the president of UCP and was named head of Universal International Studios in 2022. Across both studios, she oversees more than 40 active TV series.
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“Most of the projects that I get behind have a commercial sensibility but tied up with something extra,” she said. “There is a meaning that is deeper, but hopefully given to audiences in a way that is digestible and doesn’t feel like medicine. Projects that you come away feeling like you’ve experienced something that speaks to larger thematics.”
Making Major Projects
In the last six months, several high-profile projects that Springborn developed and produced were released, including three Peacock series: Ted, Dr. Death season two and Apples Never Fall.
A prequel to Seth MacFarlane’s Ted movies, Peacock’s eponymous seven-episode series debuted in January and was, per Nielsen, the No. 1 original streaming comedy in the U.S. for two consecutive months. It was one of the first series that Springborn worked on at UCP.
To bring the series to life, she worked alongside MacFarlane, its showrunner, executive producer, writer and director.
“Beatrice is very hands-on and very creative,” MacFarlane said. “She is somebody who really inspires enthusiasm and the desire to go the extra mile. You know that she has seen every one of your shows and that she’s absorbed all the nuance and detail and has processed it all in a really intelligent, creative way.”
When Dr. Death creator Patrick Macmanus began working with Springborn in 2020, the first season of the series was midway through production.
You know that she has seen every one of your shows and that she's absorbed all the nuance and detail and has processed it all in a really intelligent, creative way.”
“It would have been very easy and understandable for an executive of her level and of her experience and intellect to come in and want to change what Dr. Death was before she got there,” he said. “Instead, she came in purely to ensure that we were able to execute it as well as we possibly could. Beatrice was there when I both wanted and needed her at every single turn. She fought for our show every step of the way.”
Springborn also fought for Apples Never Fall. In 2021 she helped secure the rights to the Liane Moriarty novel (with David Heyman of Heyday Films) in a highly competitive sale and landed a straight-to-series order at Peacock.
In its first week, Apples Never Fall debuted as the sixth most-watched original series across streaming, per Nielsen.
That kind of success isn’t foreign to Springborn. Prior to her tenure at UCP, she was head of originals at Hulu, where she was responsible for acquiring hit series including The Handmaid’s Tale, Little Fires Everywhere and Normal People.
“I don’t think I could have done this studio job without having been a buyer,” Springborn said. “Mostly because as much as buyers will explain and articulate their mandate to you, it’s usually not what is successful. Having been a buyer, I know that the mandate is never what usually ends up popping. So [at Universal] we dedicate a percentage of our slate to the types of shows that [distributors] are looking for, but also, we dedicate a huge part of our slate to taking risks and doing things that might feel out of the box, which are done at the highest level of quality. ”
‘She’s a Deep Diver’
Universal Studio Group chairman Pearlena Igbokwe has known Springborn for years and was eager to bring her aboard. “One of the things I love about Beatrice is her curiosity,” Igbokwe said. “I also appreciate that she’s candid about what she knows and what she doesn’t know. She is very forthright about what she wants to learn and she’s a great student. She’s a deep diver and I think that’s the mark of a leader.”
Springborn credits her journalism background for keeping an open mind.
“The skill set of a journalist is exactly what works in this business, which is curiosity and a point of view, or at least not always knowing the answers,” she said. “When you are developing shows, you think it’s one thing and that evolves as you make it. Having the openness to it being something else is part of the journey and what makes things good.”
