On my way to the film industry summit hosted by the city at the Cultural Center earlier this month, I bumped into the crew for Chicago PD, a new television series that’s a spin-off from Chicago Fire, set to launch on NBC January 8.
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Pedestrians, kept at bay by crime-scene tape and real cops, clustered on the opposite corner, pulling out cell phones to capture a scene that’s not all that rare in Chicago anymore. As the upbeat mood and robust turnout at the summit attested, while most of us are still feeling the squeeze of a rotten economy, happy days are here again for the Illinois film industry.
While the studios are making fewer (if bigger) films, Illinois Film Office head Betsy Steinberg says there’s been “a huge influx of episodic television” here, and that’s what’s keeping everybody working. “We love our movies,” she adds, “but one season of Chicago Fire could easily outspend a large blockbuster movie.”
Writer and producer Dick Wolf, creator of Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Law & Order, with all its spin-offs, was the closing speaker. Interviewed onstage by the Tribune‘s Steve Johnson, Wolf said the difference between a show that works and one that doesn’t is “the writing,” 23-year-olds don’t have “the mileage” to write drama, “the audience is never wrong,” and “success teaches you nothing; you learn from failure.”
