Rising Hollywood Mogul Donna Langley Has Something Rivals Lack – a Steady Hand | Analysis
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The promotion of Donna Langley, the head of the Universal film studio, to chief content officer overseeing all of NBCUniversal’s entertainment divisions, is Comcast President Mike Cavanagh’s first big decision in his tenure running the media business directly. It’s a savvy move to advance a quietly accomplished leader while other major studios are struggling, many insiders told TheWrap.
“In a time when these studios are a mess, it’s a safe move,” a producer told TheWrap about promoting Langley, referring to the box office woes and internal challenges at rivals like Bob Iger’s Walt Disney Company and David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery.
“It seemed inevitable,” one top talent agent told TheWrap. “There were rumors for a while that she wanted more responsibility and to move further up the Comcast hierarchy.”
True or not, Langley’s tenure has been marked by a lack of public drama and a theatrical slate of movies big and small that often went against the grain of what the rest of the industry was pursuing. Her advancement of major features from and about “not a white guy” filmmakers and protagonists made her a trendsetter. And Universal treated those works not as counterprogramming but as A-level events, while her hard-won respect and admiration among industry players and filmmakers have made her among the most trusted executives in town.
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But how a chief content officer will function within NBCUniversal, owning all content decisions across film, television and streaming, remains to be seen. Langley is not experienced in the world of television, and it’s still unclear who holds the final decision over greenlighting content as Mark Lazarus rises to chairman of the NBCUniversal Media Group to run the company’s TV and streaming operations.
Understanding Langley’s singular success at Universal Pictures is key to gaining insight on how she might run content across the entire corporate behemoth.
A Universal representative declined TheWrap’s request for comment for this piece.
Treating counterprogramming as event cinema
Langley was named vice president of production at Universal in 2001, a year that coincided with the first “Fast and the Furious” movie. The picture, which earned $205 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, has come to typify the kind of films that she would eventually champion once she was promoted to Universal Pictures chairman in 2013.
In 2014, a year after Langley took over, and without a single conventional tentpole or film with a budget above $70 million, Universal set records for theatrical profit margins. That was the year, to take one example, that director Luc Besson and star Scarlett Johansson’s R-rated sci-fi original “Lucy” topped $470 million on a $40 million budget. Comcast won the market share war in 2015, which is the year Langley’s Universal arguably arrived, despite Disney offering up new “Avengers” and “Star Wars” movies.
Universal earned a then-record $6.7 billion that year, outpacing the $5.5 billion earned by Fox in 2014, thanks to tentpoles like “Minions” and “Jurassic World” as well as against-the-grain smash hits like the N.W.A. biopic “Straight Outta Compton” and Amy Schumer’s raunchy “Trainwreck.”
Donna Langley “was taking chances on a diverse slate of original films from new directors without proven track records before it was popular,” said one high-level industry insider.
That includes, for example, Kay Cannon’s 2018 film “Blockers,” about three parents who try to stop their daughters from losing their virginities on prom night, and Melina Matsoukas’s “Queen and Slim” in 2019, about a Black couple on a night out who are pulled over by police and end up on the run. It also came to include zeitgeist-defining smash hits like “Bridesmaids,” “Fifty Shades of Grey” ($1.33 billion across a trilogy on a combined $150 million budget), “Girls Trip,” Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning “Get Out,” the “Pitch Perfect” trilogy and the increasingly inclusive $6 billion-and-counting “Fast Saga.”
Save for an attempt to turn the Universal Classic Monsters into an MCU-style Dark Universe that was scrapped after a single disappointing entry, Universal has mostly stayed out of the superheroes and expanded universe sandbox.
Trusted by Hollywood, beloved by filmmakers
The trust and respect of filmmakers who want to do more than just indie flicks or franchise plays, as well as Langley’s confidence in the material that other studios might pass on, is key to her last decade’s worth of success.
While rival studios bank on franchises and existing or acquired IP, Universal has also banked on independent brands like Illumination, currently the theatrical animation leader; the Blumhouse horror factory; and homegrown franchises. While she was not in charge at the start for all of these properties — the first “Jurassic Park” opened in 1993 and “Despicable Me” opened in 2010 — the relationships she formed with the likes of Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri and “Fast and Furious” star Vin Diesel were a key reason why they continued to thrive.
The last few years have many high-profile filmmakers including James Wan and Christopher Nolan opting to make Universal their home. Jordan Peele followed up the Oscar-winning “Get Out” and “Us,” two of the biggest-grossing original live-action Hollywood films of the last decade, with a five-year exclusive deal with Universal. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert followed up their Oscar-dominating and $100 million-plus smash “Everything Everywhere All At Once” with an exclusive five-year deal with Universal.
Not only did Langley give Elizabeth Banks the directorial reigns to “Pitch Perfect 2,” but she welcomed Banks back after the box office bust “Charlie’s Angels” and let her direct the horror comedy hit “Cocaine Bear,” which struck gold at $89 million worldwide.
“Her biggest strong suit is her relationships,” noted another industry veteren. “Every filmmaker loves her.”
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Universal was right about paid streaming
Langley’s Universal was an early adopter of the premium video-on-demand revenue stream, which saw theatrical films becoming available to rent after as little as 17 days for $20. Langley recently declared in The New York Times that paying for movies online has become “an important new revenue source that didn’t exist three years ago” which has had a “hugely positive impact” on the studio’s business.
It’s not just blockbusters like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” that are earning money without cannibalizing theatrical. The paid streaming audience is essentially a new demographic and thus a new revenue source. That new money seems to have given a real boost to studio programmers like Focus Features’ “The Northman” and Michael Bay’s Ambulance.” Robert Eggers claims that the R-rated $70 million Viking actioner actually made a profit despite earning $65 million worldwide at the box office. Universal signed a first-look deal with Bay’s Platinum Dunes despite “Ambulance” earning $51 million globally on a $40 million budget.
While insiders wouldn’t come right out and affirm the connection, one dryly stated that “studios can’t afford to make movies that don’t make money.”
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A steady ship in a raging storm
It is that ability to produce, promote and nurture original or new-to-cinema adaptations that the industry hopes she will bring to television and streaming as well.
“Given the consolidation that is happening in the whole industry, I cannot imagine a better leader for an integrated company than Donna,” a former Universal executive told TheWrap.
With Susan Rovner’s departure, Langley and Lazarus both seem to be spearheading this. While Frances Berwick, who leads programming strategy, nominally reports to Lazarus, Langley would certainly play a leading role in decision-making. Studios insiders affirmed that Langley will have television greenlighting authority alongside Lazarus, though that raises the question of who makes the final decisions.
One former NBCUniversal executive said the lack of clarity may lead to conflict down the line, and also noted that Langley was being pulled away from her core expertise in filmmaking.
“Excellent executives like Donna now have jobs that are too big to do well,” said this former top executive. “If you’re CEO you can oversee both [film and television] but Donna’s strength is being on the line taking apart a script. Now they’ve promoted her out of her core skill set.”
But another strength that still serves Langley is that amid near-constant industry-wide executive turnover, Langley has been with Universal for 22 years, and has been the head of its film divisions since 2013. The people who work with her at the top, the likes of marketing chief Michael Moses, production chief Peter Cramer and Vice Chairman Peter Levinsohn, have likewise been at the studio for decades. `
Universal still releases a slew of movies in theaters, still brokers lucrative post-theatrical pay-TV deals and has used paid streaming to augment successful theatrical hits and less commercial programmers. Moreover, Universal has been the most likely home for prestigious and promising filmmakers.
“When everyone is afraid of going over to Disney and embarrassed to be at Warner Bros., it’s clear that filmmakers are going to be taken care of at Universal thanks to Donna Langley’s leadership,” said the high-level industry insider.
That’s certainly what Mike Cavanagh is counting on.
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