Hosted by James Corden and featuring an American judging panel consisting of Drew Barrymore, RuPaul Charles and Faith Hill (along with an additional global panel of celebrities and entertainment experts from 50 other countries perched upstage), World’s is a talent competition Darnell ensures is like nothing anyone has seen before. He should know, as this time he built from the ground up. “There’s been like 50 or 60 singing shows and the only really successful one to come along and hurt American Idol at the right moment was The Voice,” he explained in a recent exclusive interview with MediaVillage. “What they smartly did was take a singing show and add a game show element. So I thought, in the variety space, what is our game show element?
“I first thought global, as technically America’s Got Talent was [just] America, although they now have a global feel,” he continued. “Then [I wondered] how can we change the judging system so it feels completely new and different? We ended with something super-dramatic and with every score there’s tension that you just don’t get from a ‘yes.’ The game-show element is this big wall of lights. The original concept was about how do we give it a twist and spin that feels like a game show meets talent show?”
Like AGT, contestants of all varieties perform for the judges. The U.S. panel of three gives them scores, but in order to advance a combined global score of 75 is required. And while the U.S. judges may be enamored by a performance, whether it translates globally could be another story. Asked what the criteria were for selecting the global judges, Darnell replied, “It was either having expertise in something -- so if we have dancers, we have choreographers judging -- or some kind of superior judging talent.
“Some are judges from others television shows around the world," he continued. ">