“I’ll tell you how important it is,” Wolf says. “It is the first project that I can truly say is Wolf Entertainment 2.0. I’m trying to position this company to be a player for the years to come.”
Wolf wants the show to shake up the very format of dramas. Each episode of On Call is 30 minutes long – a throwback, he says, to a decades-old era when series like Adam-12, The Naked City and Dragnet all had half-hour episodes.
The enduring jewel in Dick Wolf’s crown: Law & Order: SVU.Credit:
On Call is not just another Dick Wolf series. It also marks something of a generational shift, one that highlights the involvement of younger executives including his 31-year-old son Elliot Wolf, who Dick believes could eventually take over his company.
Elliot arrived at the company about six years ago. Then in his mid-20s, he kept his early efforts at the company relatively modest. He encouraged the company to drop its outdated name of Wolf Films and rename it Wolf Entertainment. He helped start a merchandise line (including T-shirts, hoodies and socks), built a social media presence and worked on podcast series for the company.
But the younger Wolf knew the company was a “little late to the streaming game” and wanted to find a way in. He had an idea for a show in a new locale – Long Beach – and wanted to centre it on two police officers. Elliot Wolf had discussions with Quibi, the short-lived short-form streaming service, before he was on the hunt for a steadier streaming partner.
At the time, Jennifer Salke was just a few years into her position as the head of Amazon Studios. Salke had previously spent nearly a decade at NBC and knew how addictive Wolf’s programming was for its audience. “We had kind of been obsessed with, like, what’s our version of a Dick Wolf show?” Salke says.
Lori Loughlin as Lieutenant Bishop in a scene from On Call.Credit: Elizabeth Morris / Prime Video
Negotiations between Elliot Wolf and Amazon executives began, about a series with 30-minute episodes. “There’s a few half-hour serialised streaming dramas, but the procedural doesn’t really exist, and everyone’s attention span is changing with social media and so forth,” Elliot Wolf says. “Let’s give people an easier access point with a half-hour format. They really dug that direction.”
When Elliot Wolf approached his father about a shorter run time, the elder Wolf thought back to all those dramas from the 1950s and ’60s. “I said yes, that’s a very viable idea,” Dick Wolf says. Salke agreed. Amazon ordered On Call.
On Call centres on two beat cops. One is a fresh-faced rookie (Brandon Larracuente), the other a seen-it-all-before veteran (Troian Bellisario). “Keep that optimism as long as you can,” the veteran cop snorts at one point. Elliot Wolf describes the show as a “next-generation procedural”. Series producer Anastasia Puglisi calls it “same but different”.
Indeed, the series has – like all Wolf shows – plenty of close-ended plot lines, with a crime or two that need to be resolved before each episode ends. But there is something of a serialised element, too, something that Amazon “asked for” to keep people invested, Elliot Wolf says.
The show was also much cheaper to make than Wolf Entertainment’s hour-long network dramas, something that delighted Amazon executives and something the Wolf camp is aware is vital to a new television era.
On Call runs for only eight episodes, a normal season length for a streaming series but a departure from what Wolf Entertainment is accustomed to on network television, where seasons can include 20 episodes.
But if On Call takes off, the shorter episode orders may be temporary. “It’s not going to be some sort of modest, constipated version of an order of a limited series or something,” Salke says. “The ambition is to deliver many hours of the show.”
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Like Aaron Spelling or Norman Lear or any other eminent TV producer before him, Dick Wolf has no retirement plans. “I don’t have any encumbering reasons to do that,” he said. “I’m single. I’m going to be 78 next week or something. Pretty great life.” He is, however, thinking about succession.
Wolf says the company would most likely belong to Jankowski, his longtime right-hand man; Puglisi, the 33-year-old executive; Rebecca McGill, another executive; and Elliot, his son.
“That’s the game plan here,” Wolf says. “Elliot’s got the name. I’m expecting him to be around for his working life, and not [messing] it up.” (Wolf used a vulgarity stronger than “messing”.) To pull it off, On Call is going to have to become a hit – or at least a franchise in a similar vein to the Chicago, Law & Order and FBI universes.
“What does the future hold?” Wolf wonders aloud. “It’s hubris to say it. But I just want the party to continue.”
On Call is streaming on Amazon.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
