Michael Krivicka, a director known for orchestrating viral marketing stunts, is taking his talents to television.
The Thinkmodo co-founder and his producing partner, Peter Veverka, have signed a deal to develop TV formats with Lion Television, the All3Media-owned production house behind programs like Cash Cab. The news was first reported by Deadline.
The partnership will start with two projects: Crazy Products, in which people test out ridiculous new inventions on camera, and Fear the Prank, which involves scaring people with seeming supernatural incidents in public places.
The titles will build on some of the renowned work that Krivicka has done for brands—first as executive creative director at Thinkmodo, and later at his own agency Who is the Bald Guy. Some of his past hits have involved a girl from the 2017 movie Rings crawling out of a screen to terrify Best Buy customers, and tricking New Yorkers into thinking that they had blown up a police car with a video game gun. His videos have accumulated more than 3 billion views on YouTube.
“Both concepts lean into the two types of videos that I have become known for in the last 10 years,” Krivicka told Adweek. “One is the invention concepts—these crazy gadgets that are kind of Black Mirror meets some kind of human element, where we make people believe that this thing’s for real. And the other is supernatural pranks.”
Krivicka first made the decision to move into longer formats a couple years ago, reasoning that there was room in the prank show landscape for projects like his.
“If you look at some of the other hidden camera things that are out there, in my opinion, they’re missing a level of cinematic value and production value. It’s a little flat,” Krivicka said. “Many of them are celebrity-driven, where the pranks are not that great, but you watch it because one celebrity pranks another.”