Law and disorder: TV king Dick Wolf’s plan to reinvent streaming

Around 2010, Dick Wolf’s vast television empire was suddenly coming undone. First, NBC abruptly cancelled his network mainstay Law & Order, which had been on the air for two decades, a move that stunned Wolf’s small production company.

A year later, two Law & Order spin-offs were unceremoniously shown the door. All that was left was Law & Order: SVU – a relatively slim slate for a company that prized multiple lines of revenue and had made Wolf a very rich man. After all, Wolf has repeated a mantra for decades: no show, no business. “It was a little tight there for a minute,” says Peter Jankowski, Wolf’s longtime No.2.

Troian Bellisario plays Traci Harmon in On Call, which Dick Wolf co-executive produced.Credit: Elizabeth Morris / Prime Video

The TV industry was migrating away from a decades-old staple that had made Wolf a dominant figure in prime-time viewing: the close-ended procedural. That popular genre of programming presented a conflict and a tidy resolution – generally in a courtroom, hospital or police precinct – all within an hour (including commercials).

Instead, streaming outlets such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu were beginning to take flight, prestige TV (“It’s not TV, it’s HBO”) was ascendant, and complex, quirky, serialised programming was all the rage. Farewell, CSI and Law & Order; hello, The Crown and Big Little Lies. Well, that was then.

As Hollywood studios have slashed budgets and bid adieu to the peak TV era, Wolf’s style of programming is coming back into vogue. The evidence is everywhere: year after year, repeats of years-old network standbys such as Criminal Minds, NCIS or Grey’s Anatomy populate the list of most-watched streaming shows, even as the studios spend tens of millions on grittier, more cinematic fare.

Older series like Suits, Prison Break and Young Sheldon became unexpected hits over the past year when they began streaming on Netflix. Vulture recently declared, “Network TV Is Officially Back”.

Troian Bellisario and Brandon Larracuente star in On Call.Credit: Erin Simkin / Prime Video

Now, some 15 years after his career low point, Wolf has rebuilt his television business – and then some. At 78, he has a staggering nine scripted shows running on several networks. NBC executives even brought Law & Order back to life more than a decade after the network cancelled it. It is now in its 24th season.

Soon Wolf will have a 10th show, one that he believes has the potential to be a game changer, and which could position his company well into the future: it’s his first streaming show, a series about a police force in Long Beach, California, titled On Call, which will stream on Amazon.

“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 such as 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.”

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.