Spy Shows Are Back: Joe Barton & Jane Featherstone Talk Netflix’s ‘Black Doves’ & The Return Of Espionage
With Black Doves, The Day of the Jackal and The Agency all hitting TV screens in the space of a few weeks, premium spy shows feel in vogue.
Jane Featherstone and Joe Barton concur. They are the producer and creator behind Netflix’s Black Doves, which stars Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw as agents who operate amid a whirlwind of secrets.
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“It’s back,” Featherstone told Deadline. “Everyone’s making ’em. The world is in a place where you need spies because there are so many barriers and nation state issues it just feels like the time.”
Featherstone, who runs Black Doves maker Sister, said these trends come in circa-25-year cycles, citing Spooks, the hit BBC series she produced in the 2000s. She said she is “definitely” being pitched more spy shows at present but there is room for plenty. Black Doves had a two-season order before it even premiered, The Day of the Jackal has already landed a second season order from Peacock and Sky, while The Agency, which is based on France’s The Bureau, launched on Showtime over the weekend and boasts a splashy cast including Michael Fassbender and Jeffrey Wright.
“Much like you can have 25 crime shows I think you can have very disparate espionage shows,” added Featherstone. “Black Doves is corporate espionage not nation state, Jackal is a spy show but more cat and mouse, and The Agency is more conventional.”
Barton pointed out that Knightley and Fassbender appeared on The Graham Norton Show last Friday promoting two different spy shows, neatly demonstrating the in-vogue nature of spies.
“It’s an interesting genre,” said Barton, who was also inspired by Damian Lewis-starring ITV-MGM+ series A Spy Among Friends. “I like working within established genres but trying to put a twist on them or place ‘trojan horse human character ideas’ into them. I’ve done sci-fi, horror and crime before but had never done [spies].”
In Black Doves, Barton has added another fun little twist by setting the show at Christmas, and it launches 20 days before the holiday. Knightley plays Helen, who begins a passionate affair that may endanger her secret identity when her lover becomes victim to London’s underworld. The agent, who leads a double life disguised from her family, is then protected by the mysterious Sam, played by Whishaw. The show also stars Sarah Lancashire, Andrew Buchan and Omari Douglas.
When it came to Black Doves, serendipity was the word. Barton was penning scripts around the time Knightley’s reps were putting feelers out that she was looking to star in a contemporary prestige TV series set in London. And when Featherstone took the project to Netflix UK content boss Anne Mensah while they were working on Benedict Cumberbatch-starrer Eric, Mensah too said she was after a contemporary spy thriller. “There was lots of serendipity and lots of speed,” said Featherstone.
Not too long after it was decided to greenlight two seasons – a rare feat reserved for very few Netflix shows such as The Witcher – and so Barton said the pressure is on to bring in the viewers and please the critics. “It’s a different kind of pressure now,” he added. “When you do a show you are always wanting it to do well to get a second season but now they’ve already let us come back the pressure is about hoping it does well to reward that faith.”
“Being a mother and kicking arse”
Helping alleviate pressure is the performances of Knightley and Whishaw, according to the creatives.
Barton called Knightley “an underrated actor who hasn’t always got her dues” and said she and Whishaw have “layers and skills” that some movie stars don’t possess.
Featherstone, who worked with Whishaw on The Hour and This Is Going to Hurt, said Black Doves wouldn’t work without the commitment to genre and tone exhibited by the two leads.
“If you hold back and in any way try not to participate in that well then it doesn’t work,” she added. “Doing these big sequences while having wit and irony takes such range. I love seeing Keira Knightley being a mother and a wife then kicking arse. And to see Ben Whishaw in a different role to what we’ve seen him in I thought we were just blessed with the cast.”
Featherstone and Barton’s partnership has born fruit in the past such as Humans (when Featherstone ran Kudos) and the BBC-Netflix’s Giri/Haji, and the pair formalized their relationship last year with a little-publicized deal struck between Sister and Barton’s Noisy Bear, both of which produce Black Doves and the latter of which is now a Sister JV.
Along with Abi Morgan and Will Sharpe, Barton was one of three scribes Featherstone wanted to work with when she launched Sister back in 2016.
In turn, Barton said Sister now “feels like a creative home.” “You learn from the quality of the notes and integrity of the creative process, which is something I respond to. I’ve done things before where you just feel you’re two drafts away when filming starts but with Sister I like the thoroughness and we have a good rapport.”
Softening the ‘Kaos’ blow
A two-season order for Black Doves helped soften the blow of the cancelation of Sister’s big-budget series Kaos by Netflix, a surprise move that blindsided its hefty fanbase when it broke in October. “I am thrilled we’re doing Black Doves again but very sad regarding Kaos,” Featherstone said.
That move came at the end of a tough year for Sister as market contraction bit. The $264M-turnover company, which is yet to turn a profit, saw Kaos axed just prior to shutting its U.S. office, as Global CEO Cindy Holland stepped down amid layoffs.
Featherstone stressed that the latter move doesn’t impact Sister’s ability to make shows for American buyers but acknowledged the going is tough.
“What we’re all trying to do in the UK is work out how an indie can be fit for purpose and strong enough to sustain itself in quite a bumpy marketplace,” she said. “We employ 45 people and to sustain a business model takes nimble and strategic thinking, so we are trying to withstand the changes that are currently in the market, which we will but you just have to be nimble.”
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