How the BlackBerry Creative Team Expanded Their Film Into a Limited TV Series

Posted by Aldo Pusey on Sunday, September 8, 2024

“BlackBerry” was never supposed to be two things. Yet when the three-part miniseries telling the metaphoric rise and catastrophic fall of the BlackBerry debuts on AMC on Nov. 13 (having premiered on CBC and CBC Gem on Nov. 9), viewers will see an extension of the film that premiered last January at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Both projects offer dramatized insights into BlackBerry’s parent company, Research in Motion, and specifically into the business relationship between co-founders Mike Lazaridis, played by Jay Baruchel, and Jim Balsillie, played by Glenn Howerton.

Pre-pandemic, when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) optioned “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry” by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, it was with the intention of turning it into a miniseries.

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The public broadcaster settled on writers Matthew Miller and Matt Johnson, who also directs, to set that script in motion. CBC was sold on the Matts’ unique vision, which told this story through three distinct timelines (1996, 2003 and 2007).

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“It was a very creative, original take on a story that could have possibly been a bit of a boring retelling,” recalls Trish Williams, the executive director of scripted content for CBC. “It’s an interesting piece of Canadian history.”

Eight months into scripting that vision, however, the filmmakers realized it felt more like a film. They flipped for a while, trying to determine the best course of action.

“It was never going to be two things, it was always going to be one and then it kept switching back and forth,” Johnson tells Variety. “We made the conscious decision to do a film when we began talking to actors.”

As they headed into production in Hamilton, Ont. they realized CBC could still release a limited series based on what they were producing. But they also wanted to be clear about what that meant: not needing to shoot multiple versions of the same thing.

Ultimately, all parties agreed to proceed with a limited series and a film, both captured from the same script.

“In that way it’s different than something like, ‘The Snyder Cut,’” Miller, also a producer, adds. “There’s not as significant of a difference between the two things. There are about 16 minutes of new footage here.”

Johnson estimates they shot roughly 30% more footage than what wound up in the film, and in putting together the cuts for the TV series they added content they felt was appealing to a Canadian audience. Specifically, that meant hockey and more insight into Balsillie’s attempts to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2006.

Those catching both versions of “BlackBerry” will notice the biggest changes at the beginnings and ends of each episode. That’s where the filmmakers spent time refining the pacing and rhythm. They also had complete control over where to place commercial breaks, helping to create narrative and tension separate from the film.

“In some ways it made great writing decisions to run things up to a commercial break and then to pull them back,” says Miller. “We used commercial breaks as story devices and started thinking about them even when we were cutting the film.”

The TV series was also an opportunity for the duo to make peace with scenes they’d had to cut from the movie, knowing they would potentially have a place in the series, instead.

“It’s painful to cut stuff on any project. Normally filmmakers have a lot of trouble cutting out scenes that they spend a lot of time on,” Johnson says. “It was easy to ruthlessly cut things out of ‘BlackBerry,’ because there was at least an idea that the footage could have a second life.”

“BlackBerry” is one of several recent projects getting two lives on film and television. CBC has been experimenting with the concept with projects like “Swan Song” and “Bones of Crows” in order to secure financing from various funders.

“It’s hard to finance television solely in Canada, especially a distinctive Canadian story like this,” says Williams. “We wanted to tell it our way and the idea of being able to finance it fully in Canada was appealing. That’s how both ‘BlackBerry’ projects came about.”

The trend isn’t uniquely Canadian. American streamers have given extended platforms to projects like Max’s “Zack Snyder’s The Justice League” (aka, the Snyder cut), and Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia,” which is being stretched into the six-part limited series “Faraway Downs” at Hulu.

“Audiences are different than they used to be,” Johnson says. “The film and series are ostensibly telling the same story about the same thing. I look at this as a way for a smaller, independent piece of work to double dip and find its audience. If months from now somebody tells me they saw ‘BlackBerry,’ I’m not going to ask them which version.”

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