Dick Wolf Compared ‘Law & Order Organized Crime’ to These 3 Classic Gangster Movies
The Law & Order spin-off Organized Crime was meant to follow a different formula than other shows in the franchise. When helping craft the new spin-off, Wolf grabbed inspiration from some of cinema’s greatest gangster films.
Dick Wolf felt ‘Organized Crime’ had completely different storytelling from past ‘Law & Order’ shows
Law & Order has always been known for its episodic television. With the exception of a few story arcs, the series’ episodes tend to be very self-contained. This might’ve allowed new audiences to jump into the show at any point during the series without getting lost. Organized Crime took a different approach to this kind of storytelling.
As its title suggests, the spin-off would focus on crimes specifically tied to organizations like the mob. This allowed for Law & Order to branch out into more serialized storytelling. So much so that Dick Wolf compared each arc of the first season to three of cinema’s most prolific gangster movies.
“But the thing that really excites me about the show, and I’m not speaking in progress, what I think is exciting for him is that this is the first Law & Order with literally, completely different storytelling. That in a twenty-four-episode season, which next year will be, you should think about the fact that it’s going to be three, eight-episode arcs. And the first third of the season is The Godfather. The second third is American Gangster. And the last third is Scarface. And these villains are going to be really bad guys,” Wolf told Sci Fi Vision not too long ago.
Wolf felt Organized Crime’s new way of storytelling had a lot of fresh material for its star, Chris Meloni, to work with as well.
“That gives Chris a constant source of energy, outrage, belief in justice and a different way of pursuing criminals than we’ve had before,” he said. “He could always say, in things like this, ‘What are you going to be doing this year?’ And on the mothership, or in Season 3, you could just go and check off your fingers. Now, we’re doing this is a very long, but not too long period to really get inside both your protagonist and your antagonist heads. And I’m not all you have to do is look at the casting and the first episode. And realize this is not episodic casting. We’re shooting for bigger game.”
What Chris Meloni didn’t want to see in ‘Organized Crime’
Meloni didn’t regret leaving SVU all those years ago. After all, leaving the procedural gave the actor the freedom and flexibility to experiment with a variety of projects. Man of Steel, True Blood, and and Surviving Jack were just a few of the movies and shows he did after SVU. But he returned to the Law & Order franchise because the concept of Organized Crime truly intrigued him.
“I was intrigued for a variety of personal reasons,” Meloni told Entertainment Weekly. “If you have, at least from my perspective, a very well-known and beloved TV character who left abruptly and, I would argue, unceremoniously… there’s a built-in recognizability, a thing that needs to be satiated with a sense of closure. Those are all very attractive things.”
He also stated that he wouldn’t have returned to SVU if offered, as his goal with Law & Order was to move forward. Additionally, Meloni wanted to see some growth with his fictional counterpart Elliot Stabler. Stabler was known for his short temper when it came to dealing with some of the most violent criminals on the show. But in his older years, Meloni wanted to see a Stabler that showed a bit more emotional restraint.
“I don’t want, you know, a fifty-something Elliot Stabler stomping around, unable to control his anger anymore,” Meloni said. “That’s not an attractive thing to watch.”
