Charlie Collier

AMC has been the home of some of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning series on television. Starting with Mad Men, then Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, AMC has transitioned from a channel that offered mainly movies to one that satisfies eclectic tastes with a broad range of original productions. Sister network SundanceTV has also branched out beyond its original mission of presenting the best independent films by offering viewers distinctive television series, often from overseas. Charlie Collier, the president and general manager of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios, has been boosting both channels’ slates of original series and is always looking for unique voices and forms of storytelling.

TV DRAMA: Since you have increased the number of original series on AMC and SundanceTV, has your development process evolved over the last few years?
COLLIER: Absolutely, we are constantly refining the development process across SundanceTV and AMC. If you look at SundanceTV, we’re in the early phase of creative development of scripted originals, but on AMC we’ve refined and revised the development process quite actively over the years and we continue to do so. We are still very committed to adult dramas. You look at shows like Turn: Washington’s Spies and Halt and Catch Fire, or our upcoming adaptation of The Son starring Pierce Brosnan—those very much have a home on AMC. With The Walking Dead and Preacher and Into the Badlands, we’ve done a healthy dose of genre development that wasn’t there in the early days but certainly is core to our brand now. Even in terms of process, look at what we’ve done on staffing writers’ rooms early so we get a longer and larger look at the material prior to greenlighting. That’s been a real evolution for us that has gotten us deeper into the story than we ever were before prior to greenlighting a series.

TV DRAMA: What have you learned from looking for the next great show—after the end of Mad Men and Breaking Bad—that you can apply to both SundanceTV and AMC? You can never replicate those two shows, but how do you look for what you think might be the next great one?
COLLIER: You started in exactly the right place. The first thing you learn is that you cannot replace a show like Mad Men, and you can’t replace a show like Breaking Bad. We spent at least a couple of years on both shows trying to elevate them and put them in the proverbial hall of fame. In fact, both of them are now in the Smithsonian and that was a rewarding and fitting end to two series that truly are not to be duplicated. They are part of our history forever and we will always be proud that they are part of our DNA.

You do learn a lot from them in terms of guiding principles, like believing that great drama is more about the character than the plot—that’s a big one for us. And obviously, on both those shows and so many others we are proud to invest in, we believe that nothing trumps great writing. You do learn a lot from those, but I would also say that when you have a network with shows as diverse as Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, The Son, Hell on Wheels and Halt and Catch Fire, you have to remain flexible. If you didn’t know our slate and you were looking at that portfolio of shows, discovering that they are all on the same network and are being elevated as originals by the same people might come as something of a surprise. It’s that flexibility and that nature of being eclectic by design that we are all very proud of.

TV DRAMA: AMC Studios is in production on its first anthology series, The Terror. Anthologies are becoming increasingly popular on a number of networks. What does this mean for you in the U.S. and internationally?
COLLIER: Domestically and internationally, this is an AMC Studios show. The fact that we found our next genre series is really exciting and drumming up a great deal of attention. It’s an anthology series based on Dan Simmons’s international bestseller. It is executive produced by Ridley Scott and David Zucker. As you can imagine, if you want to be in good hands in the genre space, you can’t do much better than that! Each season of The Terror explores a different true story in history and overlays a supernatural element. So it allows us to do some of what we’ve been very successful at doing across multiple stories on our air, which is elevating material about which people are passionate and then adding a fictional element in the genre, and that will make it like nothing they have ever seen before. We are thrilled that the AMC networks internationally have taken it into their footprint, and we have a lot of interest around this all over the world.

TV DRAMA: What are you learning about U.S. viewers’ acceptance of stories, settings and characters that are not American?
COLLIER: For one, the absolute growth of scripted story­telling, in general, has allowed audiences to lean into the projects that maybe they wouldn’t have when there were far fewer choices. I believe, especially with the subtitled fare, in never trying to be television for everybody, it’s television for a specific audience. And when we hit it right with The Returned or with Deutschland 83 on SundanceTV, I think it’s less about learning and more about what we’re reinforcing, which is audiences will come for great storytelling, well told, almost regardless of the format.

TV DRAMA: Just a few years ago it would have been unheard of to air a series in a foreign language with subtitles, yet SundanceTV has done so successfully with Deutschland 83.
COLLIER: It’s interesting; even now, foreign-language series with subtitles are slightly few and far between for us, but we do it on notable programs. You mentioned Deutschland 83. When something cuts through and is a unique type of storytelling, we’ve made that choice. Frankly, I think it serves not only those who speak the native language but those who are fans—again, as the mission says—of unique voices and elevated storytelling. Another example is The Returned. It came under my colleagues’ leadership of SundanceTV, but how great to have The Returned offered on SundanceTV in the very same networks group that has The Walking Dead on AMC. It shows how we can do different types of storytelling, but the two channels are first cousins in many ways in terms of creative voice, originality and excellence.

TV DRAMA: How do you work with showrunners to help them pursue their vision while still getting a show that fits your brands?
COLLIER: We’ve been fortunate to have some terrific showrunners, and I’ll tell you the best showrunner relationships are the ones based on trust. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould with Better Call Saul, the prequel to Breaking Bad, and with Breaking Bad, they’ve been here pretty much as long as I’ve been here, and I consider them true partners, not just on their shows but partners to the network and personal friends. There is a real mutual trust, and we do tend to walk arm in arm. I will say that we always start with the premise that the showrunner’s vision is the most important ingredient. At the same time, we also believe in development, and there is an art to that balance.

TV DRAMA: With so many television series these days across so many channels and platforms, what are you learning about the best way to launch a show, make noise and get viewers’ attention?
COLLIER: I will tell you brand matters a lot. We believe we have a very important and valuable asset in the AMC brand and the idea that an AMC show means something to viewers around the world. That is incredibly valuable when we are launching a new show and when we are taking the type of creative risks that turn into Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and Preacher. We are thrilled that television has become such a dominant form of filmed entertainment in our culture. I believe the stories on our air and other great ones across other networks and platforms just simply wouldn’t have been possible in terms of creative risks and storytelling excellence without this technological change. But with that, to make noise in a relatively cluttered landscape, having the brand that backs what you do really matters.