How to Tame a Fox

Films Not Made
Episode 4: How to Tame a Fox

AVI: Welcome to Films Not Made.

AMY: I'm Amy Hobby.

AVI: And I'm Avi Weider. We've all got that one project that's in a drawer somewhere. A script that never got made. A pitch that got so close. You know, it's that film that maybe would have changed everything.

AMY: Today our guess is Oscar nominated filmmaker Heidi Ewing, the director of documentaries like Jesus Camp, Detropia, and most recently, a film that I love called Folk Tales. She does both docs and features.

AVI: She's got this one project called How to Tame a Fox, based on a true story. She optioned the material during Covid, wrote a whole pilot for it, but then it just never happened.

AMY: So today we're pulling that one out of the drawer. We're going to talk about talking foxes, magical realism, the war on science back then and now, and what it's like to write something you truly love and don't see it happen. Welcome to Films Not Made. Here's my longtime colleague and friend, Heidi Ewing.

AMY: Heidi Ewing, welcome to the show.

HEIDI: Thank you for having me. And you're in season one of what's going to be huge and popular and awesome.

AMY: Amazing. Thank you. So do you want to tell us about How to Tame a Fox?

HEIDI: Well, How to Tame a Fox is a limited series based on a book I read called How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog), and it follows the unlikely friendship between two biologists in Russia in the 50s who clandestinely and illegally, decamp to Siberia to see if they can convert a wild fox into a domesticated fox, or basically repeat what took 50,000 years to happen, which was a wolf becomes a dog.

AMY: And is this a true story?

HEIDI: Yes, it's a true story based on the story of Lyudmila Trut and Dmitry Belyayev, who were two geneticists and biologists in the former Soviet Union that met in Moscow and hatched this plan. But at the time, things like genetics were considered Western bourgeois science. And Stalin had done a huge crackdown on most science that was experimental in any way or that smacked of something sort of nouveau Western.

HEIDI: And so none of these things were sanctioned. And in fact, there was a massive purge and crackdown on a ton of scientists, who were jailed and worse in the 50s under Stalin's reign. So they had to do this experiment in a very clever way. Dmitry Belyayev was actually in charge of the cytology and fur department.

HEIDI: So basically, a lot of money was being made in the Soviet Union by selling furs, including fox furs. So instead of skinning and killing these foxes, they were slowly getting them moved to a fox farm in Siberia. And, under the guise that they were trying to see if they could come up with better, more shiny furs and things like that, and instead of moving and killing these foxes, they were actually trying to domesticate them. And the experiment still is going on, in Siberia, in Novosibirsk. And they are on to their 60th generation of foxes.

AMY: But it's open and known that they're doing this, of course.

HEIDI: Now it is. Yeah, it's now known. But it wasn't for many years. And Khrushchev also tried to kill the program, but his daughter fell in love with the foxes who she thought were cute. So she convinced Khrushchev to let it ride. And I'm obsessed with domestication. People who know me really well know that I like to talk about apes, gorillas. I like to talk about bonobos.

AMY: Heidi, did you see the film I produced Inside the Mind of a Dog?

HEIDI: I did not.

AMY: We do talk about the bonobos because the bonobos can't do what dogs can do, right? If you point at something, they can't understand if the ball is under this coconut or that coconut.

HEIDI: Yet they can recognize themselves in a mirror, right?

AMY: That? Yeah, they can, but they fail the point test.

HEIDI: Yeah. It's fascinating, I know that. And if you look at apes versus dogs versus crows and the skills that they can do, of course apes and crows can actually build tools and dogs cannot. So there's all kinds of different skills that they've acquired over the years. Some from one another, some from the environment. The latest story in domestication is really interesting.

HEIDI: You probably heard about it, which is that there are raccoons that are self domesticating, and they are because their ears are getting floppier because, as an evolutionary tactic, as a survival tactic around humans, the cuter you look, the longer you survive. So it goes on and on.

AMY: It's survival of the friendliest.

AVI: We had one of those, living in our garage not too long ago. And, I tell you what, I was happy to de-domesticate him from the garage.

HEIDI: Yeah. Okay. No, they can get a little crazy, but anyway, so I'm a domestication freak. I read this book, and I thought it could make a great script.

AMY: It's amazing.

AVI: When was the book written and did you option it? Is that how you started?

HEIDI: Yeah, I optioned the book. Let's see, it was like a Covid thing. It was like 2020. I optioned the book. I talked to the author.

AMY: We're being told that it's Lee Alan Dugatkin.

HEIDI: Yeah. Dugatkin.

AVI: And Lyudmila Trut.

HEIDI: Yeah. Lyudmila Trut was a coauthor on it. I spoke to Lyudmila in Siberia. It was like, the scariest day of my life. She was terrifying. She was in her 90s. So I actually called the author, Lee, and I was like, I'm obsessed with your book. I want to option it. And they gave me a decent price, and then I optioned it.

HEIDI: And then I went ahead and did this massive outline. I kind of broke down the story. I broke the narrative, as they say, and edited it out. And then I wrote basically, what's episode one.

AMY: And when you finished the script, were you like, this is amazing? This is going to happen. Who read it first?

HEIDI: I always knew it was a long shot, okay. It took Chernobyl over ten years to get made.

AVI: It's a big historical thing.

HEIDI: Yeah. They're really hard to get made. Queen's Gambit, Chernobyl. Both of these took a million years to get made. Plus, I'm trying to get something made right when Putin's about to invade Ukraine. Like, the interest in Russian stories wasn't at its height. It's a period piece, very expensive to make.

AMY: Animals. It has lots of animals.

HEIDI: A lot of animals and foxes. I was thinking we could probably photograph a lot of it in Canada, where there is a fox farm for domestication. Or Bulgaria, where it is cheaper to shoot. I mean, it was makeable, but obviously a long shot. I mean, the problem is that a lot of my tastes are a little bit out there.

HEIDI: Same in documentaries. I mean, we just made Norwegian dog sledding, high school and the Russian border.

AMY: I love that movie.

HEIDI: Thank you. So, I love it too. Basically, I fell in love with the story. I spoke to Lyudmila, and she was like, you can option it. The only thing you cannot do, because they knew I was going to create fictional elements and do composite characters and stuff, is you cannot create a romance between me and Dmitry Belyayev.

AVI: Oh, so there is no love story?

HEIDI: There is a love story, but not between the two of them. So, I did not allow it. Even though it would have been really nice but may she rest in peace, she died in 2024 I said okay, I wouldn't do that.

AMY: Who read it first? Who did you send it to first?

HEIDI: My manager and my agent.

AMY: And what did they say? They're like, Heidi, no way.

HEIDI: They were always like, oh my God, what? She's totally crazy to do this. But they thought it was a great story. And they didn't want to discourage me because I did I Carry You with Me as my first narrative and this is what I wanted to write next. I was also looking at Dandelion Wine.

HEIDI: I want to adapt one of my favorite Ray Bradbury books, and it's hard to adapt, which I think is why it hasn't been done. But I was looking at that and I reread it and it felt a bit dated suddenly in a way that it didn't when I read it before. You know, you start reading things and looking at it with a different eye for cinema and narrative.

HEIDI: And then I was like, I want to do this. So I wrote it.

AMY: It was supposed to be a limited series. Like how many episodes?

HEIDI: I thought it could be like six. I saw what was happening, which is that the limited thing was an issue. The Russia thing was an issue. So basically I put it on the shelf for now. But I think it is evergreen and I think, obviously if I got someone like Cate Blanchett or someone attached, things can change.

HEIDI: So, I don't think anything's ever fully dead. But you have to know when there's not an appetite in the marketplace for something and pivot to something else. So I'm about to go make another narrative that's a thriller that takes place in Sicily in 1985. So, you know, you just have to go with it.

HEIDI: So no, we've never taken it out and tried to sell it. I was looking for a producing partner. And then I kind of got the feeling this wasn't the best time.

AMY: Did you have a dream cast? Like, who would play the two scientists? We all have casting lists.

HEIDI: I did have an idea. Well, first of all, I was like, I'm going to bring Daniel Day Lewis out of retirement because...

AMY: Yeah, you and everyone else.

HEIDI: From hunting or making shoes, or whatever the fuck. And the dude is going to come and play Belyayev and he's going to like it, and I'm going to get to him, and he's going to identify with this character. And then I'm like oh my God he did come out of retirement- for his son last year. See!

AMY: It still could happen

HEIDI: He was my number one. Cate Blanchett was in my head. I also had this idea of Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara playing the two roles, and producing it through their production company. Now, Joaquin Phoenix is a vegan, so I don't know that he would be comfortable playing somebody who's-

AVI: Whose domesticating wild animals?

HEIDI: Well, that or, like he wasn't eating them, but he was involved in the fur department in the USSR. Like the ends justifies the means kind of thing. So I never got to find out if that would have been a thing. So yeah, I had some fantasy cast going.

AMY: Okay, so now you have this project, and it's a bad time. Russia invaded Ukraine.

HEIDI: Yeah, Putin was already kind of unpopular and the idea of doing something about celebrating two Russian scientists- I thought it was very timely because it's also about the war on science, because Stalin was, you know, the original war on science.

AVI: Oh, oh yeah.

HEIDI: Well, we have one here too. So I was like, for me, I was like, okay, we're celebrating this thing, but we're also really putting a microscope on the consequences of silencing scientists who end up leaving the country and working for other countries. For me, it was like a great time to make the film.

AVI: There's an interesting parallel that I saw when I was working on the trailer that you'll see. There's an eerie coincidence with how science is being treated now.

HEIDI: Yeah. It kind of is more topical now. I started writing it over Covid, during the Covid times.

AVI: There was some dodgy science going on there.

HEIDI: Yeah, dodgy science could be another name for something.

AVI: Drinking Bleach, ivermectin.

AMY: Yeah, stuff like that.

HEIDI: To be honest, in my opinion, Covid really upped the status of the dog in Western society. The dog has a very high status. The dog lives with us. The dog is like a family member. The dog dictates parts of our day. The dog has very high esteem in most of Western societies. And during the Covid times, the dog status was raised even further because people who never were able to have a dog, had a dog. They were staying at home alone with their dog, and their dog was their only friend and so people became much more attuned to the feelings of how sensitive their dog was to their moods and emotions. You started seeing a lot more articles about scientists in the United States studying dogs, books on dogs and I feel like people are now actually more interested and in touch with the story of domestication. So Dmitry Belyayev had a theory that the gray wolf is the dog, that it's the same species. And until recently even, the theory was no, it's a split off. Like the way that humans split from the apes- it's a different species. But the fact is you can mate any dog to any wolf.

AMY: Yeah. That's right, the offspring.

HEIDI: So it's the same species. My dog, who is 9 pounds, is a gray wolf. They just changed their appearance but basically it's identical.

AMY: They made themselves cuter so they could survive and get some scraps of food from the caveman fire.

HEIDI: Exactly, from the caveman fire. If you try to mate a donkey and a horse, you get an infertile mule, but if you mate a dog and a wolf, you get a regular, healthy animal that can reproduce. So it's the same species, it's wild. And people, I think, are more and more interested in this. So actually, maybe it's the best time to try to bring this project back. I don't know, but I'm still interested in it.

AMY: So the project was never greenlit. But the good news is, we had our AI friends help you with a deck. And then we also made a trailer for you.

HEIDI: That's hilarious. I cannot wait to see this.

AVI: We gave it the green light.

AMY: We've greenlit your project.

HEIDI: Oh, my God. My agents needs to know.

DISCLAIMER: Films Not Made uses AI to reimagine movies that were never produced. All development materials, pitch decks, trailers, and posters are AI generated. Any likenesses of people are speculative and synthetic. No real actors participated in their creation. This is cultural commentary, not endorsed by any individual or studio referenced.

AMY: This is the cover page of the deck. It has a very Siberian looking environment.

HEIDI: I love the opening image. It's really funny. She looks like Isabelle Klee, who is a dog influencer who has a huge following on Instagram called Simon Sits.

AMY: That's true.

HEIDI: Yeah, she looks like Isabelle Klee. That is super weird and also a little bit like...

AMY: I think it might be Jessie Buckley.

AVI: Jessie Buckley.

HEIDI: Jessie Buckley, okay.

AVI: Jessie Buckley, as you'll see, was the first casting choice of AI.

HEIDI: Sure, not a bad choice.

AMY: Is that a silver fox? It's not a red fox.

HEIDI: It's okay. There were silver foxes. There she is on the platform. Oh my God.

AMY: Yes, she's waiting for the train to Siberia. Maybe. She just has one fox.

HEIDI: The fox train back to Novosibirsk. That's what that is.

AVI: And the logline that AI came up with is, "In Stalinist Russia, a brilliant young biologist risks exile, obscurity, and her own humanity to participate in a forbidden experiment that attempts the impossible, transforming a wild fox into a dog." And then underneath it, there's a kind of elevator pitch, which is, "How to Tame a Fox is a true, almost unbelievable story."

AVI: And a longer one, "In Stalinist Russia, a young biologist secretly tries to turn wild foxes into dogs hidden in Siberia under the cover of a fur breeding program. The experiment risks everything and becomes a test of what fear does to people and what tenderness can still survive. Tense, smart and darkly funny, the series is about domestication, obedience, and the quiet, dangerous choice to stay curious."

HEIDI: Well, they were not trying to transform a fox into a dog. They were trying to domesticate a wild fox in the way that the wolf became the dog. But yeah. Okay.

AMY: So she's wearing a coat. Is her coat warm enough for Siberia? She's got a kind of an urban coat.

HEIDI: They didn't have fleece during the 50s. And she probably has a fur collar, and fur hat. I think Lyudmila would wear that. I don't think it's too far off. I think she's okay. She was a very stoic person. I met her, and I think she probably would just endure.

AVI: We ask AI to give us a style for your film.

AMY: A little director vision to help you out.

AVI: Here it shows, "mythic realism under snow" and, "history, pressure and tenderness rendered in cold air." Kind of like, you know, when you're in a pitch meeting, how you would describe what it looks like.

HEIDI: Well, I would never call it mythical realism under the snow. That's interesting because it's an extreme pressure antagonist rendered in cold air. It's not a sentence I would have. Rendered in cold air. This is-

AMY: Welcome to AI.

AVI: It's very florid.

HEIDI: It sounds like directions for a medication. Because pressure is rendered in cold air.

AVI: Yeah, well.

HEIDI: Historical realism is okay

AMY: Yeah. "His tactile historical realism, worn materials, natural light while allowing subtle moments of psychological surrealism, to surface without spectacle. Frames favor intimacy over grandeur and restraint over polish treating memory animals in imagination as emotionally real. The tone is austere but tender, finding beauty and quiet defiance inside an unforgiving world."

HEIDI: There's some good keywords in here. I wouldn't have written it quite that way, but I like unforgiving worlds. "Austere" I would never use that, it would scare off a buyer. "Psychological surrealism"? Not quite. But there are some surreal moments. There's some magical realism.

AVI: That sounds right.

AMY: The images here are of, I don't know, it looks like the fox might have escaped. There's an outdoor cage. Kennels.

HEIDI: I would not focus on the cages in this film.

AMY: No, I don't think so.

HEIDI: You know, even having the cover page, having a fox in a cage. Although it is pulled from a scene in the film. But I would probably have the fox sitting on her foot at the platform on the opening instead of...

AMY: Yeah, or curled up by the fire inside their Russian lodge.

HEIDI: Those cages are too big.

AMY: Okay, so we have some casting. For Lyudmila," a brilliant, stubborn biologist whose quiet empathy and moral resolve drive her to risk everything for a forbidden experiment."

HEIDI: Oh, my God.

AMY: Jessie Buckley.

HEIDI: Oh, yeah. Jessie. Good idea. I love Vicky [Krieps] as an idea. Florence Pugh actually crossed my mind when I was first thinking about this.

AMY: Oh, nice. Jessie Buckley is Irish, but she was in Chernobyl. Maybe that's why AI was thinking Russia.

HEIDI: Maybe, maybe.

AMY: Vicky Krieps was in, Phantom Thread. Both Jessie and Florence were in Little Women, right?

HEIDI: So, I like the spunk of Florence and Jessie. Vicky, isn't as spunky as the others in terms of a natural personality. I think Lyudmila is more fun.

AVI: So here we have a shot of Jessie. This must be the fur breeding. You know...

AMY: Lodge?

HEIDI: Another cage. There has been three cages so far.

AVI: There is a cage behind her.

AMY: We have just too many cages.

AVI: It's cold. We can see her breath.

HEIDI: I like that.

AVI: Frosty.

AMY: Yeah. That's nice.

AVI: Next up, we have Dmitry.

HEIDI: Yeah.

AMY: He's clearly a scientist because he has one of those chalkboards with a bunch of numbers. Scribbles and equations.

AVI: It's smokey, probably a cigarette.

HEIDI: He's hot. That guy's hot. Mads.

AVI: Mads Mikkelsen.

AMY: He's amazing. I have to say, I don't know if either of you saw The Pusher Trilogy way back. So amazing.

AVI: It's on my list. Yeah.

AMY: Worth a look. There don't seem to be a lot of Russians on the casting list here.

AVI: Stellan Skarsgard.

AMY: Danish.

HEIDI: Yeah.

AMY: Mark Rylance. Sort of a theater-forward guy.

AVI: For the role of Alexander. We've got Josh O'Connor. He was just on SNL.

HEIDI: Yeah. Josh O'Connor.

AMY: He played Prince Charles on The Crown, among other things. He's actually an amazing actor..

AVI: He looks like he's in a classroom, it's snowy outside.

AMY: He also has some scribbles, some equations on his chalkboard.

HEIDI: I think it's the same chalkboard. He borrowed it from Dmitry.

AVI: It's possible.

AMY: From Stellan.

AVI: It's the platonic ideal that AI likes to pull.

HEIDI: Yes. Remind me who George Mackay is.

AMY: George Mackay is...I think he's largely a character actor. He's a Brit. He was in 1917.

HEIDI: Yeah. I like Josh O'Connor for this. Paul Mescal, I feel is overexposed right now.

AMY: I mean, having said that, Aftersun is one of my favorite movies of last year or the year before. And All of Us Strangers. I mean, he's an amazing actor, but you're right, he's everywhere.

HEIDI: Josh O'Connor obviously has had a big year as well. But anyway, these are not bad ideas I have to say.

AMY: We're glad we can help. hope for Nina.

AVI: For Nina Sorokina

AMY: "She's the hardened fox breeder who understands the cost of survival and pays it without sentimental loyalty." Look at her. More cages. She's in the outer lodge in the middle of-

HEIDI: Funny because Jodie Comer was one of my ideas for Lyudmila.

AMY: Yeah. Interesting.

AVI: She's on the list for-

AMY: Noomi Rapace is Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, right? Yeah. A lot of Nordic actors.

HEIDI: All the ladies.

AMY: Nina Hoss. Nina Hoss was in Tar, right? She was Cate Blanchett's wife.

HEIDI: Oh, yeah.

AVI: "Trofim Lysenko, smiling bureaucrat who weaponizes ideology to crush dissent and control science."

HEIDI: A real person in the real world, a real villain. Everyone's in the classroom.

AMY: Are they in a classroom in Siberia? Or this is before they left?

HEIDI: He should not be in a classroom.

AVI: It's like a Polit Bureau, sort of?

HEIDI: Yes. He does appear in a meeting, a giant, you know, 800 seater.

AMY: So that's not 800 seats. It's like 200.

HEIDI: But it's not bad.

AVI: It's but it's very Soviet, you know, trope-ish with.

HEIDI: Yeah, the light they're using, it's all very cool. Yeah, a lot of fluorescent light.

AMY: A little brutalist architecture.

AVI: Here's some storyboard frames that we asked AI to pull from the script. Get it to just give us some frames of what it could look like for your pitch.

AMY: Students studying a fox on a screen projection.

HEIDI: Yeah, that could be Belyayev's classroom.

AVI: We have a close up of Lyudmila with a cage.

HEIDI: Another cage.

AMY: More cages. Is that a red fox?

HEIDI: Oh this is Alexander ruining his life and his career by standing up against the crackdown on science in front of all these. There. There's a moment where, Jessie

HEIDI: Buckley, Lyudmila, is being forced to take these foxes away from the fox farm because this woman's husband is afraid that they're going to be found out because they've been helping the experiment. He's threatened to euthanize all the foxes. So she says, you have to take this fox and, and her babies. So the experiment continues.

AVI: So- pivotal scene.

HEIDI: There, all the scenes from the movie. So, yeah.

AVI: Is this what you even somewhat conceived in your mind's eye when you were thinking about it?

HEIDI: I mean, I think that the cold tones and going in this direction is not a great idea. It's expected. So, I'm not crazy about the color palette because sure, it's what you would see. But I don't think that that's the world. I think I would definitely want to have a warmer palette, but the scenes are correct. The casting is not bad.

AMY: Yeah, it's aggregating, I think, the look of this type of historical film.

HEIDI: Yes.

AMY: It's like an aggregate of what's out there.

HEIDI: I'm sure. It's really interesting.

AVI: It did give us other ideas, it always gives us a couple of choices. And then I just say, just pick the one that you think is best. So it would be interesting to see the other choices.

HEIDI: And which program did you use to build the deck?

AVI: The image prompts come through ChatGPT. 5.2. And the actual images were generated in Gemini, Nano Banana Pro. So the prompt is created in Banana Pro.

AMY: It's banana fanna fo fanna.

AVI: It's Google Gemini. It's the generative image producing part of Google Gemini.

HEIDI: They're getting really cute with the banana fanna.

AVI: A little bit about Heidi. We put you in the deck.

HEIDI: That's not me.

AMY: Yeah. That's you, on the train tracks in Siberia.

AVI: I guess that's a version. A version of you somewhere in the multiverse.

HEIDI: It's so weird.

AVI: AI made a little thing at the end. Why now? And this is, according to ChatGPT 5.2. "How to Tame a Fox is an historical story that speaks directly to the present moment. It examines what happens to truth, science, and human behavior when fear becomes policy and obedience is rewarded over curiosity. In a world increasingly shaped by disinformation, political pressure experts say systems that demand compliance to this story ask a simple but urgent question- what does it cost to remain compassionate and curious under control? This series is a reminder that tenderness, skepticism and independent thought are not passive traits, but acts of quiet resistance."

HEIDI: Okay.

AMY: And now for a trailer. We made a trailer.

HEIDI: Oh, my God.

AVI: Here we go.

Trailer: In our country, obedience keeps you alive.

Trailer: Domestication is not training, it is transformation. Please be seated for an exam. Several biology textbooks, including those on Darwinism, will be withdrawn and destroyed. I have something to say.

Trailer: I aim to recreate the conditions by which the wolf became the dog. The silver fox, a very close genetic cousin of the wolf, is my standard.

Trailer: This will ruin you. Take them.

Trailer: What if kindness could be bred? Foster without fear. So I went as far as I could to try something impossible.

Trailer: I want to be a part of it.

AMY: There's nothing in the cage. AI forgot to put something in the cage.

HEIDI: Yeah. Where did they go?

AMY: It's a very, very tiny fox.

HEIDI: Wow. I would not watch that. Not sure what that is, I guess. Hard pass.

AMY: Thank God for humans.

HEIDI: Incredible. Oh, what did it say? I think domestication is humanity or something? I don't know, but that's a hard pass. That was not dialogue from the script. They invented a bunch of shit.

AVI: Oh, interesting.

HEIDI: Yeah, except I want to be a part of it. She does say that. I think somewhere.

AMY: Yeah, I want to be a part of it.

HEIDI: Yeah. They're like little robots and they're Russian. Why do they have these weird accents? They weren't even Russian accents.

AVI: We could not get it to do a good Russian accent.

HEIDI: I don't know why her fingers are bloody, I don't know.

AVI: There's a scene where she gets bit.

HEIDI: Oh yeah she got bit.

AMY: Yeah, well it's not very exciting to just cut to the blood dripping. The most amazing AI thing is they had the cages and they forgot to put the fox in.

AVI: You know, again, these are created fairly quickly.

HEIDI: I mean it's amazing in the sense that it's fun to-, it's the workshopping. It's like you're workshopping your ideas.

AVI: It's like a shitty first draft.

HEIDI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AVI: The tools are, you know, sort of crude and can be iterated over tons of times. But again, for this, it was really like, what can we do fairly quickly.

HEIDI: Hard pass on it.

AMY: Okay. We have one more activity. It's very short and then we'll wrap up. So we want to give you the opportunity to pitch to an executive since we know you didn't get to do that before. We have our studio financier, Finn. And he's going to join us. So you can ask him some questions. Avi, I think he's read the script. We sent the script to his assistant.

AVI: He's a little slow on the uptake to begin.

AMY: Yeah, he takes a little while to respond. Just give him a break.

HEIDI: What's his name?

AVI: Finn.

HEIDI: Okay.

AVI: I'm gonna I'm going to let him in.

AMY: He's from L.A..

HEIDI: Clearly he is. Has he been programmed to be a real dick?

AMY: He's been programmed as an executive.

HEIDI: Okay. He's gonna be like, hey, sweetie, I don't know what you're thinking. Okay, let's meet this Finn and "Hey, babe. Let's talk about domestication".

AMY: Let's make it real. Come on over to my house.

OLIVIA: Hi, everyone. Olivia here. Finn's wrapping up another call, and he'll be joining us in just a moment. As usual, he's got about ten minutes, but of course, he loves coming on the show. He's especially excited to meet Heidi. We saw the shortlist announcement and he asked me to make sure he didn't miss this. Just a heads up, he does have a hard out today. He's heading straight from this call to the airport. Budapest this time, so I'll hand you off to Finn. As soon as he jumps off his other call, he'll be right with you.

FINN: Hey, Amy. Hey, Avi. Hi, Heidi. Good to see you all. Give me one second. I'm pulling up the pages and the deck. All right, I've got the materials in front of me. Just so everyone's calibrated. Heidi, we're focusing on How to Tame a Fox episode one pilot and the promise of the series engine Rex with Repairman [referring to the wrong project]. I'm tracking how the new deck pivots. The tone is what keeps the story anchored to endurance. No redemption, just continuation. So, Amy and Avy, let's dig in. Which scene or series B do you want to start with? Are we troubleshooting, pilot escalation, character clarity, or how the deck's positioning lands for a broader audience?

AVI: Finn I think what we want is a really brief hot take on the episode one pilot for How to Tame a Fox.

FINN: Okay, here's my hot take. The episode one pilot really lands as both historical drama and series engine. We start in 1990, Siberia. Lyudmila Trut- older, tough, feeding her foxes in a world of scarcity. The tone is clear. Survival costs something. Tenderness is dangerous. Then we jump back to 1952 Moscow and meet young Lyudmila, a brilliant, offbeat biologist drawn into Belyayev's forbidden experiment to domesticate foxes under Stalin.

FINN: What works? The pressure is real. The authorities are closing in, science is policed, and for Lyudmila, empathy is risky. The characters are sharp. Lyudmila stubbornness. Belyayev's compromise. Alexander's doomed idealism. The visual style- mythic realism under snow gives coldness, intimacy, and emotional clarity. What bumps me? The deck and script both promise escalation, but the pilot finale Lyudmila-leaving for-Siberia crisis at the farm could use a bit more of an oh God, what next, push?

FINN: It's transformation, not triumph, but I want the next episode's crisis to be locked in, not just implied. So question- do we want the final beat in Siberia to reveal the next antagonist, Boris, Nina, the foxes themselves? Or should episode two open with Lyudmila's first real test, a moment that's not just survival, but a choice that changes her and the fate of the experiment.

AMY: Heidi?

HEIDI: Oh, I like how it ends. I like how the pilot ends. I think it is a cliffhanger. So, listen, if you financed the pilot, I can rejigger the ending to make it more exciting. But what I'm looking for, you know, is a strong partner, Finn, who believes in the vision of the project.

FINN: Heidi. Totally fair. And yeah, the current ending leaves us hanging in a good way. Lyudmila. Alone in Siberia. Foxes on edge. The experiment at risk. It's tense and unresolved. I buy it as a hook for what's coming next. The thing is, from a partner-fan perspective, I want to feel confident that episode two won't just repeat the same tension, but will actually escalate. You've got the vision and the world is fresh. If we're backing this, what I'd ask is- can you tease, even subtly, what's about to break or shift in Lyudmila's world, something only she can solve or survive? Not just will she endure, but what's the cost? What's the change? So are you open to one more hints of what she's up against next, a visual adjustment?

HEIDI: Absolutely. Sure. 100%.

AMY: Finn, I have a question for you as a producer. We think it might be hard to shoot in Siberia, for many reasons. Politically and practically. Does your studio have stages in other countries or other locations that you can recommend that might be more affordable and logistically feasible?

FINN: Yeah. Siberia is a tough sell between politics, weather and infrastructure. You're chasing headaches. Honestly, most shows that want snowbound Russia cheat it somewhere else. You've got a few go tos. Lithuania and Latvia are popular with good crews, forests and winter exteriors, but sell as Siberian. Poland can work too, especially for interiors or village sets. If you need bigger stages, Hungary has great facilities in Budapest, Origo and Quarter Studios. Lots of period set builds, solid tax incentives and crews who shot plenty of Russia before. Iceland's gorgeous and reliable for snow, but pricey unless you keep it tight. Canada is the classic fallback in some parts of Alberta or Manitoba with big skies and snow. Plus stable infrastructure. So what's your priority? Authentic landscape, cost or ease of getting cast and crew there?

HEIDI: I like Lithuania for this actually, I think, and Romania is also a good possibility and I think crews are used to going there. So actually that was part of the idea. Although there are fox farms in Canada, so that would be a possibility. But I think Eastern Europe makes a lot of sense.

FINN: Yeah, Romania is smart. Lots of period productions, good local crews, and you can build Soviet era assets without breaking the bank. Lithuania has got that authentic northern vibe, forests and the cold you need. If you're after real foxes or farm setups, Canada could work. You'd get the animals and support, but you lose some of that off the map Soviet tone. Unless you really dress it. Eastern Europe honestly, is probably your best mix of look, cast and crew experience. If you lean into Lithuania or Romania, I just say scout for spots that give you bleakness and isolation, but still lets you move gear and people. So for your fox action, are you picturing real animals on location or is there a hybrid plan- practical plus digital that'll shape your options?

HEIDI: Practical plus digital because in some scenes the foxes talk and sing, there's like some magical realism where the foxes sort of come to life. So that would probably be animatronic and/or a mix of VFX. So it's definitely a mix, but you definitely need some real foxes as well.

FINN: Yeah, that's the right call. Real foxes for close ups and atmosphere, just enough fur and movement to ground the world. Then when it gets magical, you switch to animatronic heads or full VFX for those talk or sing moments that keeps you out of uncanny valley and lets you dial up the mythic realism without burning your whole budget. Lithuania and Romania both have production houses that have handled animal work and creature effects. The key is to get your fox plates early. Plan those transitions scene by scene and don't overpromise. What's possible live on set? So, Heidi, are you imagining the fox vocals to sound naturalistic, or do you want them stylized, almost human? That'll set the tone for your magical realism.

HEIDI: Well, actually, in real life, foxes laugh. A real fox bark is like a laugh, so those would have to be authentic. And then when they actually speak, I think they'll probably be human voices. But that's a really good question.

AMY: Finn, I have another producer question. I think you're probably going to greenlight this. And so I want to know what are you thinking about in terms of network or streamer. Where do you see this premiering?

FINN: All right. Gut check. How to Tame a Fox feels tailor made for a prestige streamer. Think HBO, Netflix, or maybe Apple. It's got the period setting, the magical realism hook, and strong female lead. That's their sweet spot for international drama. Hulu could fit if you lean historical and keep it grounded, but the foxes magical angle pushes it toward the elevated genre. Lean networks are less likely, unless you strip out the wilder magical beats and go full straight up bio drama, which I wouldn't recommend. Streamers will let you keep the weird, keep it visually lush, and go international with casting. So are you picturing a binge drop- all episodes at once? Or a weekly rollout? That affects how we pace cliffhangers and escalation.

HEIDI: I'm hoping HBO or I was also thinking the BBC, and the UK might be good for this as well.

FINN: Yeah, HBO is the dream big canvas appetite for bold period work and they know how to market strange but beautiful. The whole Warner slash discovery slash Netflix swirl makes it a moving target. But if the show's DNA is strong, it'll travel. BBC is a sharp move, too, especially if you want that quiet literary tone and a European cast. A co- pro between BBC and a streamer isn't out of the question either, especially if you shoot in Lithuania or Romania and that fits their pipeline. The main thing is you've got a show that's international, layered and a little strange. That's a fit for buyers who want original, not formula. I'd lean into the foxes and the Soviet setting when pitching, let it stand out. So for BBC or HBO slash Netflix, are you open to mixing accents and nationalities in casting, or do you want to keep it strictly Russian speaking with English for the audience that affects which partners get excited?

HEIDI: No, I don't think everyone has to run around with the Russian accent. I think those days are kind of over. I think it's fine to have an international cast.

OLIVIA: Sorry about that, everyone, Finn had a hard out and had to jump. He really appreciated the conversation and asked me to pass along his thanks. As usual, we'll follow up with next steps and anything he promised to send. If there's any questions, in the meantime, you can route them through me. Thanks again for your time today. Take care.

AMY: Right before we get to the funding part, super classy.

HEIDI: Finn, on his way to Maui, no doubt. Oh my God, this is our future isn't it? Pitching to AI.

AMY: Yeah, we're giving you some practice for the near future.

HEIDI: Yeah. No, seriously, every executive is going to be an AI.

AVI: A sneak peak to what's already happening

AMY: There's already amazing script coverage AI software someone showed me.

HEIDI: I'm sure.

AMY: They're already using it.

HEIDI: When I first moved out to L.A., I made $50 a script.

AMY: Oh, that's pretty good. I think I made like $25.

HEIDI: Yeah, I was just that good. Yeah, I did script coverage. How funny is that? Well, this has been extremely alarming. Thanks for that, guys.

AVI: Thanks for being such a good sport and bringing it to us and the show. I mean, I think it's great. I just, you know, I think you're right. It's totally evergreen.

HEIDI: You know, it's made me kind of think about maybe rejiggering and trying to take it out in '26. Let's see. It re-inspired me because I really still love it so much. It's one of those things where I'm not like, oh, that was a stupid idea. I'm like, that was a fucking good idea.

AMY: It was a fucking good idea. I love dogs, and then there are big themes in it.

HEIDI: So, it's fun. No, thanks for bringing it to the top of my mind again.

AMY: Yeah. And good luck on your shoot. You're heading to Malta in a week or two weeks?

HEIDI: Yeah. I'll be there till late March. I can't wait to watch the other ones guys.

AMY: Thanks, Heidi.

HEIDI: My pleasure. Bye, guys.

[Upbeat music]

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Music by Joe McGinty