As a young executive at New Line Cinema and recent Los Angeles arrival from the U.K., Donna Langley recalls becoming a BAFTA member for the first time and attending numerous special screenings put on by the British Academy. One of these was for Ang Lee’s 2000 hit “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
“And the projector broke,” she says. “But it was really fun, because I got to stick around. I was very young in my career and I just got to talk to a lot of people, and it was, to me, very representative of the community. And of course there were lots of Brits in the room. It was a nice moment.”
More than 25 years on and Langley — now chair of NBCUniversal Entertainment and one of the most powerful and respected execs in the industry — is probably attending fewer BAFTA screenings. But she is about to be celebrated on stage by the British Academy when she receive its highest honor, the BAFTA Fellowship, at the BAFTA film awards ceremony on Feb. 22.
“I’m incredibly honored, and really chuffed,” she tells Variety, adding that she was told by BAFTA some time ago and the news has been a “fun one to keep secret” until the announcement was made earlier this week.
Langley — who was made a dame by the late Queen Elizabeth in 2020 — also makes history with Fellowship. While it’s largely reserved for top-tier actors, directors and occasionally producers, she becomes the first Hollywood studio boss to receive the honor.
“It just adds to the gravitas of it,” she says, while adding that other execs, including Kathleen Kennedy, have been awarded the honor previously. “It is nice to be able represent the executive branch, if you will, of the industry, and accept this on behalf of that part of my community.”
It’s a community of execs that could, however, be shrinking at least if Netflix’s industry-shaking acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery goes ahead.
Watching the back and forth play out as Paramount continues its efforts to win over WBD shareholders, Langley notes that there are “twists and turns that have already happened, and I assume there will continue to be twists and turns.”
And while the future of another major studio hangs in the balance, Langley underscores what NBCUniversal offers in the meantime.
“We have stability, we have longevity and we have got plenty to be getting along with and not to get distracted by what’s happening across the street,” she says. “We want to provide a place for people to come and work that is stable, that is making plenty of movies every year and releasing them in movie theaters, and doing the same on the television side and streaming side.”
Plenty to be getting along is an understatement, not least in a year where, on the movie side alone, NBCUniversal is releasing massive, potentially billion-dollar smashing tentpoles in “The Super Mario Galaxy Film,” Minions 3,” Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi “Disclosure Day” and Christopher Nolan’s next major piece of event cinema, “The Odyssey,” the $250 million all-star retelling of Homer’s ancient Greek poem.
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Langley won’t reveal much about what she’s seen of “The Odyssey” beyond the recently released trailer other than to say it’s “looking like a wonderful Christopher Nolan movie.” But she does offer that the director — who she first brought to NBCUniversal for the box office and Oscar winning smash “Oppenheimer” — only presented her with the screenplay for “The Odyssey” in early 2025, before going almost immediately into the shoot.
“He went into full prep on the film and then into production in a fairly short period of time,” she says. “That’s the way he likes to work. He likes efficiency and he likes to get on with it.”
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An expensive swords-and-sandals epic doesn’t necessarily translate into a slam dunk at the box office, as the modest performance of “Gladiator II” underlines. But Langley is unsurprisingly confident about the bet she’s taken.
“The thing that Christopher Nolan represents is pure cinema. And I think what we’re seeing with audiences, and we certainly saw how they showed up for ‘Oppenheimer,’ is that there’s an audience that wants to show up for a Christopher Nolan movie and there’s an audience that wants to show up for pure cinema,” she says. “And I believe it’s growing and it’s getting younger, and it wants to see big entertainment on the best screens in the world.”
With this is mind, plus Nolan’s expertise and the A-list cast he assembled, Langley asserts that giving “The Odyssey” the greenlight was a decision she didn’t take long to mull over.
“While any big movie, any big swing, is a ‘risk’, this one was not a difficult yes.”
The risk already appears to have paid off, at least in terms of pre-sales, with NBCUniversal releasing tickets to select Imax 7mm screenings exactly a year in advance of its July 16. release. Many sold out in minutes.
“It was a gamble on the one hand, but one the other hand we know that there is a rabid, dedicated audience for seeing Christopher Nolan’s films in that kind of format,” she notes. “And we knew that to be able to mark your calendar a year in advance and know that you’re one of the lucky ones with that golden ticket would be exciting to enough. But having said that, we were absolutely thrilled with those results. It was a tactic, if you will, that paid off.”
Would Langley give this special treatment to any other films? “Maybe! We know it when we see it.”
While “The Odyssey” prepares to set sail into cinemas this summer, another major title is just about to start revving its engines. After several false starts in terms of its release, the next “Fast & Furious” movie has now been officially dated for March 17. 2028 — a five-year wait from the previous installment — and given the title of “Fast Forever.”
The latest news was announced on social media in typical fashion by Vin Diesel, but aside from his involvement in the film, who else will return — The Rock? Gal Gadot? — is merely speculation at present. Sadly Langley won’t provide more clues.
“We’re keeping it under wraps! Follow Vin Diesel — if there’s breaking news he’ll be the one to do it.”
But Langley did confirm that efforts would be made to shoot at least parts of “Fast Forever” in Los Angeles.
“The franchise started in LA. It really has its roots, firmly planted in LA car culture, and in some ways, this movie is absolutely a tribute to that culture and a tribute to Los Angeles,” she says. “Some of the story, not all of it, does take place in Los Angeles. We’re just in the process of getting a production plan together, but it is absolutely our hope that we can bring some of the production back to Los Angeles and California. I think we as an industry are very focused in revitalizing the industry here as much as we can.”
A franchise planted far away from Los Angeles (and actually shot in the U.K.) that has already done gangbusters at the box office is “Wicked.” Another potentially risky big swing, the two-part adaptation of the hit musical now has a combined box office in excess of $1.24 billion (off a budget of around $300 million). While it was only ever supposed to be two movies, given the huge win “Wicked” has proved for NBCUniversal, Langley confirms there are aspirations to continue the adventures in Oz.
“It’s very early days on ‘Wicked,’ but we are hopeful that after the amazing success that we’ve seen with the two movies there are other ways that we could branch out with the world-building,” she says. “And of course, we do that with our rights holders and in conjunction with them, so when they’re ready.”
NBCUniversal broke Disney’s 8-year reign at the top of the box office in 2023, thanks largely to the success of “Oppenheimer” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” Given that this summer sees the release of Nolan’s next film and the Mario Bros. sequel, plus “Minions 3” (the previous film earned $940 million in 2022), there are hopes it may be able to take back the crown from the Mouse House again.
“I hope so — we feel really good about our year,” says Langley. “These are big franchises and a big, epic movie with ‘The Odyssey’ and other things besides it. I’m excited. But then our competitors have good years as well. And there are good films coming from everyone. So I’m excited to see how, hopefully, the box office can just start some rebounding with really good cinema.”
As for the non-Universal films Langley herself has been enjoying recently, she says she “loves ‘Sinners’ — I’m a big fan of Ryan Coogler” and also “Marty Supreme.” “I absolutely loved it,” she says adding that it was also loved by her husband and two teenage boys. “It’s so rare that we can all go and find a movie that we can all enjoy.”
“Sentimental Value,” she says is “wonderful film,” while she’s also delighted for her “old friend” Paul Thomas Anderson and the success of “One Battle After Another.” “I’m really happy to see him getting the attention that he so deserves.” Outside of the awards films, Langley says she also was a fan of “Weapons.”
But her “absolute favourite” film of the year? Perhaps predictably (because it comes from Universal’s Focus Features), it’s “Hamnet.”
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