Carnival Films has gone global since its phenomenal success with Downtown Abbey: Its sniper-thriller series The Day of the Jackal and air-disaster drama Lockerbie: A Search for Truth are steeped in international intrigue.
Both Carnival Films shows are productions of Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group. But Carnival’s projects remain as British as ever, and that’s by design, says CEO Gareth Neame.
“I’d like to think that what defines all of our shows is a big ambition to appeal to audiences right around the globe with very British fare,” Neame says.
Carnival Films was founded in London by feature film producer Brian Eastman in 1978, and went on to produce projects for the UK’s BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, as well as PBS, A&E, HBO, NBC and more. Among its many successes was the masterful 1989 TV serial Traffik, the basis for Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning 2000 feature film Traffic.
In 2004, Neame, formerly the BBC’s head of drama, joined Carnival. The company was sold to NBCUniversal in 2008, and Downton debuted two years later.
Soon Nigel Marchant, who produced both Downton and another Carnival hit, The Philanthropist, moved in-house to become an executive producer at Carnival, then managing director.
Now Carnival and British projects in general are on a run — which Neame attributes largely to Downton, an awards magnet that has also spawned three films.
“Downton is very important culturally, but it actually played a hugely important role in globalization of content because it was really the first UK show that achieved the same sale values as a Hollywood show,” Neame tells MovieMaker.
“Universal’s argument in the sales was Downton Abbey is the best show we have, it’s as good as all the other shows that you buy from us, and we’re not selling it to you for a dollar less than the other shows that you have from us.”
He says that Downton, “without any question… caused the Apples and Netflixes and Amazons of this world to move into London.” He also credits the show’s success with the “big demand for UK talent that we see today.”
Garthe Neame on Carnival Films Reviving The Day of the Jackal
That demand has boosted Carnival’s The Day of the Jackal, a strong Emmy contender after already receiving nominations for the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, and SAG Awards. Eddie Redmayne, the titular Jackal, is among this year’s acting frontrunners.
The series is a modern-day adaptation of the 1971 novel by Frederick Forsythand 1973 film starring Edward Fox. The original versions told a fictionalized story of an assassin hired to kill French President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s.
Redmayne is a former model, but he is “beautifully ugly” as the Jackal, Neame notes. Neame, who had not worked with Redmayne previously, pegged the Theory of Everything Oscar winner as someone “attracted to work that requires a lot of preparation, research, physicality, makeup, and choreography movement.”
“He obviously likes parts that he has to kind of work hard to create,” Neame added.
Neame also says he “was very keen to pay homage” to Fox. He notes that both Fox and Redmayne are “very British,” which is in keeping with Forsyth’s novel: The book spends its first few chapters referring to the Jackal as only “the Englishman,” which made casting an actor “who felt expressly English” crucial, Neame says.
The Day of the Jackal film was written by Forsyth and Kenneth Ross. In 1972, the year between the novel and the movie being released, Forsyth came out with another novel, The Odessa File. Its big-screen adaptation, co-written by Ross and George Markstein, arrived in 1974.
Why are we telling you all of this? Because The Odessa File film was directed by Ronald Neame, Gareth Neame’s uncle. Which meant the Carnival chief felt a special attachment to Forsyth’s work.
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For more than 50 years, The Jackal sat dormant in the Universal archives. Neame recalls being “cautious” when he approached Universal with the idea of rebooting the film into a series. But Universal gave Neame its blessing, given Neame and Marchant’s strong history of translating features into TV: Downton Abbey was famously inspired by director Robert Altman’s 2001 Gosford Park, which was written by Downton creator Julian Fellowes. Both the film and series starred the late Maggie Smith.
“When you take a similar idea and then spin it into numerous episodes over multiple seasons, you have something with a really different shape,” Neame said. So, the moment I thought of [Jackal] as a 10-part contemporary show, I got very excited about it and saw the possibilities.”
Sky, Peacock, and Carnival have announced that a second season of Day of the Jackal is in the works.
Revisiting Lockerbie
Carnival’s other big awards contender this season, Lockerbie: A Search for Truth,covers one of the worst air disasters in history, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. On December 21, 1988, 259 passengers and crew, as well as 11 people on the ground, were killed when the plane exploded over the quiet town of Lockerbie, Scotland.
Colin Firth stars as Dr. Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the victims. The limited series is told from Swire’s perspective as he helps put a man named Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in prison for the bombing — but then begins to doubt his guilt.
Swire was the head of a group representing UK victims, and his shifting position on al-Megrahi was polarizing, to say the least. That was Neame’s way into the story.
Neame says he chose to tell the story from Swire’s POV because Swire is “somebody I’ve seen on TV ever since I remember the tragedy happening.” Neame was 21 at the time of the bombing, and Swire was “frequently” on TV in the UK. It certainly helped that Swire wrote a book that could be used as source material for the series.
Carnival Films has many more projects on the way, spanning multiple genres: First up will be the third season of HBO’s The Gilded Age. A new Downton Abbey movie comes out on September 12.
And Neame and Marchant’s next big swing is Peacock’s miniseries All Her Fault starring and executive produced by Succession breakout Sarah Snook. Dakota Fanning (Ripley, The Perfect Couple) and Abby Elliott (The Bear, SNL) will join her on screen.
Neame describes All Her Fault as “a fantastic new contemporary” that is “part character show, part thriller.” It follows a mother, played by Snook, as she goes to pick up her son from a playdate — and gets a series of terrible surprises.
The Day of the Jackal and Lockerbie: A Search for Truth are streaming on Peacock.
Main image: Eddie Redmayne as the titular assassin in The Day of the Jackal. Carnival Flms.