Indonesian magician and illusionist The Sacred Riana has ventured into TV drama for the first time in an original production deal that both builds on her wild popularity, rides upsized demand for premium Asian content, and spearheads a new direction in Asia for one of the region’s oldest international brands.

Her 10-episode series, The Sacred Riana: Bedtime Stories, is an anthology entertainment programme inspired by folklore and urban legends from across Asia and crafted to deliver Asian horror to worldwide audiences.

The original production, featuring self-contained episodes, is part of Fremantle’s expanded Asia production remit under Australia/New Zealand/Asia chief executive, Chris Oliver-Taylor, out of Sydney, and the Jakarta-based Indonesian team led by co-managing directors Sakti Parantean and Victor Ariesza.

Fremantle’s broader co-production agreement with Indonesian production house, Wahana Kreator Nusantara, involves both The Sacred Riana: Bedtime Stories and romcom Ex Addicts, which follows the lives of the quirky members of a support group established to help them get over their exes.

Further titles from the partnership are expected to be announced in 2020.

For Marie Antoinette Riana Graharani (the woman best known as The Sacred Riana), the reason for taking her character into scripted drama is simple: “I like to tell a story through my magic performance,” she told delegates at this year’s ContentAsia Summit, where she previewed the show.

Graharani, who released her theatrical feature,The Sacred Riana: Beginning,in March this year, broke records for Facebook’s top video of all time in August last year with more than 500 million views on the back of her appearance in talent series, Asia’s Got Talent season two, for Sony Pictures Television’s AXN.

“Bedtime Stories is another way to make all of you into my world. And with Bedtime Stories I want to make an even bigger, deeper and more meaningful impact,” she said.

Crafting that impact falls to Salman Aristo, writer, producer, director and chief executive of Wahana Kreator Nusantara.

Aristo says the quest begins with the search for stories that embody The Sacred Riana’s philosophy: “telling stories with magic, with curiosity but also full of heart”.

“Stories have moved us forward since the beginning of humankind… we are going to find those kinds of stories in every region, in every country, that can be transformed into the Sacred Riana's platform,” he says.

The first stories will come from Southeast Asia, then maybe Asia and then perhaps other continents, he adds.

Horror was a logical place to start given Graharani’s links with Fremantle via Asia’s Got Talent, Oliver-Taylor says, listing “three great elements” – IP/storytelling, the ability to write/create and financing – essential to the way the company creates stories.

The key to the whole idea is an authentic Asian set of stories, he adds.

“The Sacred Riana brings magic and horror to life in a way that’s pretty unique, and authentic to Asia, which is fantastic. The second piece is about writers and creating and taking the magic of Sacred Riana and turning it into a television story and event. And third is financing and the path to an audience,” Oliver-Taylor says.

The effort rolls out against a roiling backdrop, stirred up in large part by streaming wars at home and across the region that will only escalate with competition.

Aristo says Indonesia’s producers are stepping up to a global challenge.

“There's no border anymore. We are right now, here, face to face with a global audience that already has a certain standard in the way they consume stories. So that's really put us in the situation where we have to be ready,” he says.

In addition, creative talent, driven away by free TV’s low-budget sweat-shop production space as well as the constipated pay-TV production environment, are shifting their feature film focus to creating television series and loving the opportunity to tell stories across eight or more hours.

“People will watch your story in eight hours in one day, they’re binge watching. You have to make sure that your storytelling grabs them, is strong enough, important enough, for them to do that. So that's what happening right now,” Aristo says.

For Fremantle, the shift into original scripted drama follows more than two decades of deep involvement in unscripted production in Asia.

Sakti Parantean, Fremantle Indonesia’s co-managing director, says the two genres are complementary. The Sacred Riana is a good example. “We got to know Sacred Riana from entertainment,” he says, adding that each genre plugs into the current fragmented entertainment landscape in a different way.

What people watch depends on time of day, who they are, who they are watching with, where they are watching, what their device is at that time…. “All our formats are growing,” he says.

Entertainment formats, which their clip-friendly snackable content, are also driving digital/social media growth. At the same time, VOD and OTT have driven up demand for premium drama.

“It’s a matter of trying to level up the game, so whatever we create… will meet international standards,” Parantean says, adding that the partnership with Wahana Kreator and the direction from Fremantle’s Australia office (Wentworth, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Neighbours) provides solid support for the Indonesia office’s new direction.

Fremantle is funding the series development, and for now, The Sacred Riana: Bedtime Stories has no broadcaster attached (that we know of).

The challenge is doing it this way is “tone”, Oliver-Taylor says.

“With something as big as this you can take this in a very particular way. Working with a broadcaster can help you shape the style and tone. It can look very different from a Netflix show to an Apple show to a Fox show to an AXN show. I think that's the biggest challenge. The actual development is totally fine for a company the size of Fremantle. We quite like working without a broadcaster initially but you do want someone [eventually] to jump on to help you shape the idea,” he says.

The Sacred Riana: Bedtime Stories is worth the risk. “We believe in the project,” Oliver-Taylor says. “We think this is a drama that will play internationally”. With a little bit of magic.