Douglas Netter (May 23, 1921 – May 8, 2017) was an American television executive, largely in the science fiction genre. His first credit was as associate producer of the 1967 Matt Helm (Dean Martin) comedy The Ambushers, about a government-built flying saucer.
Biography
Between 1970 and 1975 Netter was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at MGM Studios. It was a controversial period at the studio with many filmmakers unhappy with the treatment they received from Netter and studio president James Aubrey.
In 1975 he produced the Dean Martin crime movie Mr. Ricco, and in 1978 was co-producer of the African mercenary movie The Wild Geese. The next year he began a period when he concentrated on the Western genre, producing The Sacketts, a TV miniseries based on Louis L'Amour's Sackett family and serving as executive producer of the NBC TV movie Buffalo Soldiers. Over the next two years he also executive produced Wild Times and L'Amour's The Cherokee Trail.
1987 saw Netter's first involvement with J. Michael Straczynski, when he was producer of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future that was story-edited and partially written by Straczynski, after which he was executive producer of the Babylon 5 TV series and various spin-offs (sharing equal executive producer credit with Straczynski). A still photo of Netter shows him portraying the Babylon 5 character of Earth Alliance President Luis Santiago (The A-Z Guide to Babylon 5, ISBN 0-440-22385-7).
Between the third and fourth seasons of Babylon 5, he founded and appointed himself CEO of Netter Digital, a CGI special effects company. Netter Digital then replaced Foundation Imaging as the special effects studio for the series, doing all the CGI work for the final season of that show, as well as several of the Babylon 5 telefilms, and did all the effects for its short-lived spinoff, Crusade. He was also an executive producer for the only season of Hypernauts in 1996.
With the cancellation of Crusade in 1999, Netter Digital lost its only client. Unable to promptly replace it with other customers, the company went out of business in 2000.
In 2006, Netter began executive producing Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, the latest venture set in the Babylon 5 universe. The direct-to-DVD publication was released on July 31, 2007. Netter died on May 8, 2017.
His grandson Jason Netter was an associate editor on Babylon 5 and has gone on to produce a number of shows, including Preacher (2016-2019) for AMC and The Boys for Amazon Prime.
References
- "Cinema Showdown: Film Makers Struggle With Major Studios For Creative Control Actors, Directors, Producers Assail Editing, Promotion: Some Sue Big Companies Takeover by the 'Inmates': Cinema Showdown: Film Makers Battle to Gain 'Creative' Control". Wall Street Journal. Dec 29, 1972. p. 1.
- "Douglas Netter's Obituary on News Tribune (Tacoma)". The News Tribune. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
- "Jason Netter | Producer, Editorial Department, Writer". IMDb. Retrieved 2023-10-27.