Family Friendly Fare at Fezziwig Studios

Dan Angel had barely settled in for a meeting at Netflix before someone asked if he had a dog movie.

"Do I have a dog movie? Oh yeah, I have a dog movie," said Angel, the president and CEO of Fezziwig Studios. He gave a five-minute pitch about Rescued by Ruby, based on the true story of a police officer who turned a high-spirited rescue dog into a canine cop.

Sold. Rescued by Ruby, starring Grant Gustin (The Flash) and Bear the rescue dog, will be coming to Netflix on March 17.

Angel may be best known as a producer — his 2002 TV movie Door to Door took home six Emmys — but he's also written scripts for Goosebumps, Young Blades and R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour.

Many of his projects are adaptations of award-winning books. Fezziwig controls more than 150 titles spanning multiple genres, including SQuire Rushnell's God Winks books and several V. C. Andrews titles. A movie based on Jean Craighead George's children's classic, Julie of the Wolves, is in development at HBO Max, possibly the first in a series of films based on Newbery Medal–winning books.

Angel's litmus test is simple: "It has to be entertaining, have great characters and tell a story that wakes us up in some way."

Sometimes the goal is pure entertainment, especially in what he terms the "scare space." There's no coarse language, no gore and nothing inappropriate, but it's not "soft," either. "What you don't see is really what makes it more terrifying," he says. "Your imagination is scarier than what's right in front of your face."

Angel hopes Netflix's belief in Rescued by Ruby signals a change in perceptions of family programming. "A lot of people hear 'family' and assume it's a kids' show," he says. "Family content is really for coviewing. Kids are going to love it, but so are mom and dad and grandma and grandpa."

The pandemic has brought to light the need for more highquality shows suitable for coviewing, he points out. "I heard that $200 billion or more is being spent on content. Try to process that, knowing that a very low percentage of it will go toward family and coviewing. All the streamers need original content. They need to get all audiences, including family."

Fezziwig is ready to help. "We're working on financing it ourselves. The perfect model for us is to make what families want, then let the Netflixes and Amazons come to us and say, 'Hey, you've got 150 hours of content. Can we have some?' The answer is absolutely yes."

This article originally appeared in emmy magazine issue #1, 2022, under the title, "Family Friendly."