Colin Callender: 'We're Missing the Big Personalities Who Took Big Risks'
Today, the former HBO Films boss and prolific producer on what streamers lose by hedging bets
Welcome to my second edition of The Mavens this week, a series of conversations with some of the smartest people I know in this industry to talk about the state of the business. These are people who have accomplished big things in their time and continue doing so, and who have, notably, built careers with longevity, and more importantly, have the ability to share their thoughts uncensored.
My second Maven is acclaimed, award-winning producer Colin Callender, one of the pioneers of British television and theater. After an early career in the British theatre, his TV breakthrough was the Emmy-winning 1983 adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Following the massive success of that production, he moved into a top job at HBO, becoming executive producer of the then-cable network’s newly formed East Coast production unit. At HBO, Callender was responsible for shepherding a plethora of hits, including the Emmy-winning miniseries Angels in America from Mike Nichols, Empire Falls with Paul Newman, and John Adams, which held the record for the most Emmys in a single year until last year, when Shōgun surpassed it.
As a stage producer, Callender’s resume is also impressive: Lucky Guy with Tom Hanks, the Tony Award-winning Dear Evan Hansen, and the blockbuster hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are among his productions. Recently, as founder and chairman of Playground, Callender has produced several top series, including a second series of Wolf Hall, starring Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance, and All Creatures Great and Small, now heading for its sixth season.
Today, our conversation focuses on some of the industry’s most pressing questions, including whether there is still an audience for the kind of adult dramas Hollywood used to make, the storytelling trick Callender learned on Nicholas Nickleby that has guided his choices ever since, and the stories we lose when executives play it safe.
Richard Rushfield: Tell me what you’re working on this week.
Colin Callender: Well, that’s an interesting question. We have a lot of television production in the works, and obviously, most recently, what we had on air was something called Wolf Hall.
Something called Wolf Hall! Great show.
It’s interesting because one of the things that I was thinking about in anticipation of this conversation is what the challenges were in the movie business versus what the challenges are in the television business. Although they’re obviously directly related, I think in many ways, the challenges are quite different. It’s presumptuous of me to talk about the movie business. It’s not my day job.
You’ve made more than your share of them, though, including My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Elephant and La Vie en Rose.
However, it does seem to me that the challenge the movie business now faces is a combination of two things: remaining culturally relevant, yes, and rebuilding its audiences. Those are significant challenges that are specific to the movie business. The area of filmmaking and storytelling that I like, and I have been involved in over the years, is dramas. And of course, dramas are no longer being made in the movie business. Yes, there’s a belief that post-Covid, with audiences accustomed to watching things on streamers at home, there isn’t a cinema-going audience for those sorts of movies. But in many ways, I think that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if those movies aren’t being made, then there won’t be an audience habit of going to see them.
You believe there’s still an audience for drama on the big screen?
I do. If I was in the movie business right now — and I wouldn’t presume to tell the studios or the streamers, for that matter, how to do their business — I would want to empower a core team of talented executives who had a deep understanding of how the process of making movies actually impact what's on the screen. I would empower them to create their own slate of films that reflected their own tastes, and I would empower them to make decisions based on their belief in the ideas underpinning a project, the talent involved in the project, and let them sink or swim. There’d be many failures, but I think there would be many surprising breakouts and exciting films that currently aren’t getting made at all.
Would you still reward success and punish failure?
I would absolutely reward success, but I think the way to build new audiences is to actually produce those different genres, but at a price. Imagine, for a minute, taking the $250 million that would be spent on a franchise movie or a sequel, and making 10 movies for $25 million, and see what happens. I mean, Conclave cost $20 million and it grossed, I think, $125 million worldwide.
You have some serious films, but it’s so sporadic. You have two months of the year when they’re all released during the Oscar season, and nothing else the rest of the time.
If you look at the highest-grossing movies at the moment, and the big movies out there, I think fundamentally, what’s happened is that what we’re missing are the big personalities who used to make decisions and roll the dice. The Robert Evanses, the Bob Daleys and Terry Semels. The Sherry Lansings, the Bob Shays. I mean, they were mavericks who trusted their guts, who took risks — some smart, some crazy. They rolled the dice and championed new filmmakers, only to end up with classics, many of which defied the odds. You know, The Godfather, Kramer vs. Kramer, A Nightmare on Elm Street. I don’t think that any of those films would get made now.
Would Kramer vs. Kramer even be made for streaming?
Maybe just. But certainly, if it were made for streaming, I don’t think for a second that it would have the social impact that the original movie had when it was released theatrically. And so I think that it’s always been big personalities that have driven the business, whether they were big personalities as executives, like a Bob Evans, or they were big, big personalities as producers, like Joel Silver.
So what happened to those people?