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When Dean Devlin launched Electric Entertainment back in 2000, he thought it was going to be business as usual. And that business was making big-budget, sci-fi adventure movies like "Stargate" (1994) and "Independence Day" (1996). But, he says, "it became very clear very early on that life was going to be different without the 500-pound gorilla of a big, giant, successful director like Roland Emmerich," his partner at Centropolis Entertainment. "And I don't think I had quite anticipated that."

But, in 2004, things took a dramatic turn for the better. Devlin got a new agent, Brian Pike, then at CAA, who suggested he take a meeting with Michael Wright, the new senior VP of programming at TNT, whose goal was to build a brand for a cable channel in what he termed the "smart popcorn space" with fun, elevated, escapist fare.

"Michael said, 'I would very much like a Dean Devlin-style movie at TNT,'" Devlin remembers. But he was unsure how the economics would work, because the budget for a "Dean Devlin movie" as defined by most of his Centropolis projects was upwards of $100 million. But this was going to be a basic cable TV movie. Wright said, yes, but you can own it.

"My eyes went wide and I go, 'What do you mean?'" recounts Devlin. "And he says, 'We'll pay you a license fee for a percentage of the show. You'll put up the rest of the money, and you'll have all the worldwide rights, and you'll get the domestic rights back in four years and own it forever.' And I had never even thought about anything like that before he had said that. And I got really excited."

It just so happened that Devlin had a script that fit the bill, "The Librarian: Quest for the Spear," by David N. Titcher. It was an action adventure-comedy about a perennial grad student named Flynn Carsen who is drawn into a globe-trotting adventure after becoming the guardian of a vast super-secret archive of supernatural historical artifacts including the Holy Grail and Pandora's Box.

"He started pitching it, and I loved it," recalls Wright, who today is head of MGM+. "It was the perfect combination of clever and well crafted -- just wildly entertaining."

For the lead, Wright suggested Noah Wyle, then known almost exclusively for his dramatic role as Dr. John Carter on the long-running NBC series "ER."

"I said, 'Well, I've never gotten burned by a really good actor, but I have no idea if he has any comedy chops,'" recalls Devlin. "And Noah came on set and just blew me away. Not only did he have great comedy chops, but he had such an encyclopedic memory and mind about the history of comedy and different performances. The way he would talk about how to do a scene, I was blown away by him, and it became very clear to me that he's not just an actor. He approaches his acting like a filmmaker would, and he ended up becoming a creative partner with me."

The Electric-Wyle partnership would extend across two additional TV movies and the series "The Librarians," executive produced by Wyle, in which his reprised his role as Flynn in 10 episodes across four seasons (2014-2018), as well as directed two episodes.

Not only did "The Librarian" franchise give Electric a flagship series and an identity outside the Emmerich/Centropolis orbit, but it also foisted upon the company a new business model that has served it very well. Devlin says that every project going forward, with the exceptions of the 2016 sequel "Independence Day: Resurgence" and his 2017 directorial effort "Geostorm," has been owned by the company. That includes a total of seven TV series, from the crime drama "Almost Paradise" to the SyFy shows "The Outpost" (2018-2021) and "The Ark," which will have its Season 3 debut in 2026.

Val Boreland, who works with Electric on "The Ark" in her role as president of NBCUniversal division Versant, says one of the things she likes most about Devlin is his close connection to his projects. "It doesn't feel like he's 40 feet away in some office. He has boots on the ground. And the thing I appreciate most is his openness to collaborate and figure things out."

One of the big things Devlin had to figure out was how to move forward when the economy crashed in 2008, putting the kibosh on the big slate deal he was pursuing at the very moment TNT decided to pick up their second series, "Leverage," starring Timothy Hutton. He decided they would deficit finance the series themselves.

"Every sane person I know called me up to try and talk me out of it, saying that this is how companies go out of business," says Devlin. "And they weren't wrong. It was a huge risk."

Another key to Electric's independence is its 20,000-square-foot headquarters in West Hollywood, formerly home to Elektra Records, which it has occupied since 2016. In addition to its executive brain trust and worldwide sales and marketing teams, the building also houses editing and color correction suites, a mixing stage, a writers' room, a podcast studio and a fireproof vault storing the masters for all their shows, as well as a basement echo chamber leftover from when Elektra had an in-house recording studio.

In 2022, Electric took even more control of its own destiny when it leveraged its content library to secure a $100 million credit facility from Bank of America.

"It meant for us that we didn't have to have every single piece of the puzzle before we went out [with a project] because we knew that we were going to be able to fill in certain pieces," explains Devlin.

It also gives Devlin more freedom to go with his gut.

"If Dean's excited about something, we're going to do it, and so that makes things easier. You don't have to go to all these executive committees," says Electric founding partner Rachel Olschan-Wilson. "For instance, I've always loved horror and thrillers and dark [subjects], and I never in a million years thought Dean would do a thriller like [his 2017 feature directorial effort] 'Bad Samaritan,' but he read the script and he loved it."

Olschan-Wilson entered Devlin's orbit when Centropolis hired her as an assistant in 1997. Her fellow founding partner, Marc Roskin, goes back even further, having first worked for him as a set P.A. on "Stargate." Today, Roskin directs episodes of Electric shows like "Leverage: Redemption" and "The Librarians: The Next Chapter," which he also executive produces, while taking freelance directing gigs on non-Electric shows like "Chicago P.D."

"It's good for me to see how other shows do things or how we could do it better," says Roskin of his outside directing jobs. Also, "I introduced [Devlin] to some of these writers or technicians that I've met on other shows, and we pulled them into the fold."

Devlin has also been generous with outside directors, like former "Star Trek: The Next Generation" star Jonathan Frakes, who credits the Electric chief with rescuing him from "director's jail" after the flop of his 2004 feature "Thunderbirds" by hiring him to helm the second "Librarian" TV movie in 2006 and, later, dozens of episodes of Electric series including "Leverage" and "The Librarians."

"He has been a savior of sorts to me," says Frakes. He also taught Frakes how to gamble during a break from shooting the third "Librarian" movie in New Orleans. "He literally showed me how to play craps and win. That's a very interesting metaphor for being Devlin."

And, in spite of Devlin's decades of experience and blockbuster success, he's still picking up tips and tricks from others.

"He was just telling me this year that working with ["Leverage" creator] John Rogers taught him new ways to look at story," says longtime TNT and Warner Bros. Discovery programming exec Sam Linsky. In addition to a logline, describing the plot, "now, when he delivers stories to us or outlines, he always delivers what he calls a 'heart line,'" zeroing in on the emotional center of a story.

Devlin has turned more towards the emotional with recent projects, including the just-released big-screen dramedy "One Happy Family," about a woman (played by his wife, Lisa Brenner) whose life is upended when DNA reveals the father who raised her isn't her biological parent, and "The Poly Couple," a new half-hour comedy series about a polyamorous relationship.

Devlin also discovered the surprising emotional impact of the escapist fare he produces when they mounted the first ElectricCon in New Orleans last year, celebrating the company's original programming. People came up to him and told him how climbing aboard a spaceship once a week with "The Ark" helped them get through chemo, or they couldn't have dealt with the death of their husband without the Robin Hood-esque group of criminals taking down bad guys on "Leverage."

"I'm always happy making hot dogs. I like hot dogs," muses Devlin. "But you realize from an event like that, for most people, escapist entertainment is a really important part of the diet."