Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment is celebrating 25 years of success

When Dean Devlin launched Electric Entertainment in 2000, he thought it would be business as usual. This company produced big-budget adventure and science fiction films such as “Stargate” (1994) and “Independence Day” (1996). But, he says, “it became clear very early on that life would be different without the 500-pound gorilla of a big, giant, successful director like Roland Emmerich,” his partner at Centropolis Entertainment. “And I don’t think I was quite expecting that.”

But in 2004, things took a dramatic turn for the better. Devlin got a new agent, Brian Pike, then working at CAA, who suggested he set up a meeting with Michael Wright, the new senior vice president of programming at TNT, whose goal was to build a cable channel brand in what he called the “smart popcorn space” with fun, uplifting escapist fare.

“Michael said, ‘I would very much like a Dean Devlin-style movie to come out at TNT,'” Devlin recalls. But he wasn’t sure how the economics would work, because the budget for a “Dean Devlin movie,” as most of his Centropolis projects were set, was more than $100 million. But this would be a basic cable TV movie. Yes, but you can own it, Wright said.

“My eyes widened and I said, ‘What do you mean?’” Devlin says. “We’ll pay you a licensing fee for a percentage of the supply,” he says. And you’ll pay the rest of the money, and you’ll get all the global rights, and you’ll get the domestic rights back in four years and own them forever.” And I had never thought about anything like that before he said that. And I was really excited.”

Devlin just happened to have a script that fit the bill, “The Librarian: In Search of the Spear” by David N. Teicher. It was an action-adventure comedy about a graduate student named Flynn Carsen, who is drawn into a world-crossing adventure after becoming the keeper of a massive, top-secret archive of supernatural historical artifacts including the Holy Grail and Pandora’s Box.

“He started pitching the idea, and I loved it,” recalls Wright, who today serves as president of MGM+. “It was the perfect combination of cleverness and good craftsmanship – just a lot of fun.”

For the lead, Wright suggested Noah Wyle, then known almost exclusively for his dramatic role as Dr. John Carter on the long-running NBC series “ER.”

“I said, ‘Well, I’ve never been burned by a really good actor, but I have no idea if he has any comedic chops,'” Devlin recalls. “And Noah came on set and blew me away. Not only did he have great comedic chops, he had an encyclopedic memory and mind about the history of comedy and different shows. I was blown away by the way he talked about how to do a scene, and it became very clear to me that he’s not just an actor. He approaches his acting like a filmmaker would, and he ended up becoming a creative partner with me.”

The Electric-Wyle partnership will expand to include two additional television films and the series “The Librarians,” executive produced by Wyle, in which he reprized the role of Flynn in 10 episodes over four seasons (2014-2018), in addition to directing two episodes.

Not only did “The Librarian” franchise give Electric a flagship series and identity outside the Emmerich/Centropolis orbit, it also imposed on the company a new business model that served it well. Devlin says every project moving forward, with the exception of the 2016 sequel “Independence Day: Resurgence” and his 2017 directorial effort “Geostorm,” has been owned by the company. That includes a total of seven TV series, from the crime drama “Almost Paradise” to the SyFy shows “The Outpost” (2018-2021) and “The Ark,” whose third season will premiere in 2026.

Val Boreland, who works with Electric on The Ark in her role as president of NBCUniversal’s Versant division, says one of the things she loves most about Devlin is his close connection to his projects. “It’s not like he’s 40 feet away in an office. He has his shoes on the floor. The thing I appreciate most is his openness to collaborate and figure things out.”

One of the big things Devlin had to figure out was how to move forward when the economy collapsed in 2008, canceling the big deal he was seeking at the same moment TNT decided to pick up its second series, “Leverage,” starring Timothy Hutton. He decided that they would be unable to finance the series themselves.

“Every reasonable person I know has called me to try to talk me out of it, saying this is how companies go out of business,” Devlin says. “And they weren’t wrong. It was a huge risk.”

Another key to Elektra’s independence is its 20,000-square-foot headquarters in West Hollywood, formerly home to Elektra Records, which it has occupied since 2016. In addition to the executive trust and global sales and marketing teams, the building also houses editing and color correction suites, a mixing stage, a writers’ room, a podcast studio, and a fire-resistant vault for artist storage The main venue for all their shows, plus Echo Downstairs. Remnants of the room from when Elektra had an in-house recording studio.

In 2022, Electric took further control of its destiny when it leveraged its content library to secure a $100 million credit facility from Bank of America.

“It meant for us that we didn’t have to get every piece of the puzzle before we went out [with a project] “Because we knew we would be able to fill certain parts,” Devlin explains.

It also gives Devlin more freedom with his gut.

“If Dean is passionate about something, we’ll do it, and that makes things easier,” says Electrek co-founder Rachel Olshan-Wilson. “You don’t have to go to all these executive committees.” “For example, I’ve always loved horror, thriller and dark films [subjects]And never in a million years did I think Dean would make a thrilling film like this [his 2017 feature directorial effort] “Bad Samaritan,” but he read the script and loved it.”

Olshan-Wilson entered Devlin’s orbit when Centropolis hired her as an assistant in 1997. Her co-founder, Mark Ruskin, goes back even further, having first worked with him as a PA on Stargate. Today, Ruskin directs episodes of electric shows like “Leverage: Redemption” and “The Librarians: The Next Chapter,” which he also executive produces, while he freelances on non-electric shows like “Chicago PD.”

“It’s good for me to see how other shows do things or how we can do it better,” Ruskin says of his outside directing jobs. And also “I submitted [Devlin] For some of these writers or technicians I met on other shows, we pulled them into the fold.

Devlin has also been generous with outside directors, like former Star Trek: The Next Generation star Jonathan Frakes, who credits the Electric boss with rescuing him from “director’s jail” after the failure of his 2004 feature film “Thunderbirds” by hiring him to direct the second TV movie “Librarian” in 2006, and dozens of episodes later From Electric series including “Leverage” and “The Librarians”.

“He was a lifesaver for me,” Frakes says. He also taught Frakes how to gamble during a break from filming the third “The Librarian” movie in New Orleans. “He literally showed me how to play craps and win. That’s a very interesting metaphor for being Devlin.”

Despite Devlin’s decades of experience and huge success, he still takes tips and tricks from others.

“He just told me this year that working with [“Leverage” creator] “John Rogers taught him new ways of looking at story,” says Sam Lynskey, Discovery’s longtime programming executive. In addition to a key line, he describes the plot, “Now, when he hands us stories or outlines, he always delivers what he calls the ‘heart line,’ focusing on the emotional center of the story.

Devlin has turned more toward the sentimental with his recent projects, including the just-released big-screen drama “One Happy Family,” about a woman (played by his wife Lisa Brenner) whose life is turned upside down when DNA reveals that the father who raised her is not her biological father, and “The Poly Couple,” a new comedy series It is a half-hour long film about a polyamorous relationship.

Devlin also discovered the surprising emotional impact of his escapist fare when they staged the first ElectricCon in New Orleans last year, a celebration of the company’s original programming. People came up to him and told him how climbing aboard a spaceship once a week with “The Ark” helped them get through chemotherapy, or that they couldn’t deal with the death of their spouses without the Robin Hood-like group of criminals taking out the bad guys in “Leverage.”

“I’m always happy to make hot dogs. I love hot dogs,” Devlin says. “But you realize from an event like this that for most people, escapist entertainment is a really important part of the diet.”