Obamas’ Vision for Hollywood Company: ‘This Isn’t Like Masterpiece Theatre’

The film “Leave the World Behind” centers on the idea of mistrust and how easy it is for humans to lose empathy for one another when faced with a crisis. It is at once unnerving, misanthropic and bleak, and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, it’s produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground.

Set to become available on Netflix on Friday, it is one of three films from Higher Ground that will be released within a month of one another on the streaming service. The others are “Rustin,” a biopic about a gay civil-rights-era activist, Bayard Rustin, and “American Symphony,” a documentary tracking the relationship between the musician Jon Batiste and his partner, Suleika Jaouad. Together, the films provide the best evidence of the five-year-old company’s attempts to evolve from an earnest, feel-good brand to one that is more complex and focused primarily on good storytelling centered on, Mr. Obama said, people who are dealing with “the tensions that are in our society.”

“It’s taken a while for us to remind our team at Higher Ground, as well as the creative community in Hollywood, that this isn’t like Masterpiece Theatre — not everything we do has to fit on PBS,” Mr. Obama said in a phone interview. “We are known to watch other things.”

Those familiar with Mr. Obama’s lists of his favorite books, movies and TV shows know that his interests are varied. (When he named Amazon’s raunchy superhero show “The Boys” as one of his favorites in 2020, it shocked the show’s creator and its fans.)

“I’m a bit of a sucker for science fiction, dystopias or thrillers,” he said. “Michelle jokes that my favorite movies involve horrible things happening to people and then they die, whereas she actually likes fun, uplifting stories that make her laugh.”

In the past 18 months, the company has made its ambitions known to Hollywood by signing with the talent agency Creative Artists Agency to improve its access to new material; agreeing to an audio deal with Amazon’s Audible Originals after parting ways with Spotify; and, in April, hiring a senior executive with film and television experience, Vinnie Malhotra from Showtime.

Sam Esmail, the director of “Leave the World Behind,” is known for a paranoid and dark outlook on society, as represented by “Mr. Robot,” the acclaimed thriller series he created. He was surprised his path ever crossed Mr. Obama’s. But when they discussed “Leave the World Behind,” which is based on the Rumaan Alan novel that was a pick of Mr. Obama’s, Mr. Esmail said, he was heartened that the former president was not interested in shying away from the themes of the film, whose starry cast includes Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali.

“He really didn’t want to pull punches,” Mr. Esmail said. “He wanted to have these characters face the truth about the fragility of our society and how do we reckon with that. I found that refreshing.”

Some in the Hollywood trade press criticized Netflix’s deal with Higher Ground, struck in 2018, as being more about name recognition than actual content. “Rustin” and “Leave the World Behind” are the first narrative feature films from the company.

“There’s plenty of reason to believe that it could be a vanity brand,” said Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive of Netflix, who last year extended the initial four-year deal for another two years. “But they got street cred right out of the gate.”

He referred to Higher Ground’s starting out with “slightly lower stakes things” like Ms. Obama’s kid-oriented food show, “Waffles + Mochi,” and documentaries like “Crip Camp,” which centered on disability rights, and “American Factory,” which highlighted the plight of blue-collar workers in a globalized society and won an Oscar for best documentary.

“I think this year, with ‘Rustin’ and ‘Leave the World Behind,’ you can see the scope and scale and potential for the ambitions that they have, and we have for them,” Mr. Sarandos said.

Among the projects Higher Ground has in development is a film adaptation of “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David W. Blight. Regina King is set to direct, with a script by Kemp Powers, reuniting the pair behind “One Night in Miami.”

But now the company is also expanding into other genres: It has grabbed the rights to S.A. Cosby’s best-selling crime thriller “All the Sinners Bleed,” which it will produce with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, and to “Hello, Beautiful,” by Ann Napolitano, a family drama that was a pick in Oprah Winfrey’s book club. Both will be made into series for Netflix.

Ms. Obama is also working closely with Lupita Nyong’o, who will produce and star in a romantic comedy called “Fling,” based on a novel by J.F. Murray. An unscripted series called “Boomin Love,” about older people finding companionship, is in production with a Harvard-trained behavioral scientist, Logan Ury, who is serving as one of the on-air experts.

“These might not be something people expect,” Mr. Obama said of the upcoming projects. “I think we’re now in a place where we’re branching out into different genres, and people are starting to probably get the signal that ‘Oh, if we’ve got a good story that doesn’t neatly fit into what we expect Higher Ground might be interested in, they still might be a good partner for us.’”

Producing projects based on high-profile novels, which have a built-in fan base, could augur well for Higher Ground, whose output so far has had respectable reviews, though none have topped Netflix’s weekly top 10 most-watched lists.

Still, there are plenty in Hollywood who find themselves star-struck by the Obamas. When Mr. Obama visited CAA’s offices in September, agents flooded into the company’s conference room and later described the day with words like “magical” and “the greatest.” Matthew Heineman, who in his 20 years as a documentary filmmaker has embedded with vigilantes fighting drug cartels and American special forces stationed in Afghanistan, said he had been “nervous” walking into the restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard for what he described as a “surreal” meeting with the former president about “American Symphony.”

The couple are known to give notes on scripts and will look at various edits as a project moves through post production, though Mr. Obama says he does so “with great humility.”

“One of the great pleasures of being president is everybody having an opinion about how you can do your job and frequently from people who have no idea what it’s like to do your job,” he said.

Despite the projects ahead, Mr. Obama said the couple intended to continue spending just 10 to 15 percent of their time nurturing Higher Ground, especially as the 2024 election approaches and they are called to the campaign trail.

“Michelle and I do not aspire to be full-time Hollywood moguls,” he said.

For the projects they do choose, however, their support can make the difference. Bruce Cohen, a producer of “Rustin,” credits the Obamas with getting his film made after HBO passed on it years earlier.

“Once you have them in your corner, it gives you a really good chance,” he said.

And Mr. Heineman, whose film documents Ms. Jaouad’s battle with leukemia, was able to form a partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Be the Match organization, which helps connect patients to bone marrow donors, because of Higher Ground, he said.

“The idea of trying to make an impact with the film was something that was important to him and important to me,” Mr. Heineman said, referring to Mr. Obama.

While Mr. Obama was no stranger to Hollywood — since his early days of campaigning for the presidency he found a welcoming audience among the show business elite — he has found that working in this business has taken some getting used to.

“It’s ironic that the private sector is made out to be this hyper-efficient thing, and the government is plodding, slow,” he said. “I think part of it is ideological and part of it is people’s experience with the D.M.V.”

“Everything takes so long — decisions, contracts, scripts,” Mr. Obama said. “We organized a major address or a G20 meeting in three weeks. Getting somebody to read a script in three weeks is lucky, much less write a script in three weeks.”