From ‘Stranger Things’ to ‘Dash & Lily,’ Shawn Levy Is Building a Netflix YA Empire

Netflix is bringing the holiday cheer a little early this year with the adorable Christmas rom-com Dash & Lily. Based on the best-selling novel Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, the show follows two New York teens as they fall in love during the “most wonderful time of the year.” With its heart-warming premise and enchanting leads, Dash & Lily has the makings of a major Netflix hit. But the show’s secret weapon might be its super-successful executive producer, Shawn Levy.

Director-producer Shawn Levy is perhaps best known for directing hit films like Night at the Museum and its sequel, Real Steel, and the upcoming Ryan Reynolds film Free Guy, but he’s starting to build quite the YA empire on Netflix. His production company, 21 Laps, championed a little show called Stranger Things to monumental success and Levy hasn’t stopped there. In the last few years, Levy and 21 Laps have also produced the revival of Unsolved Mysteries, the beloved show I Am Not Okay With This, and the upcoming Shadow and Bone.

Dash & Lily, however, has a special place in Levy’s heart. More in the vein of Serendipity or You’ve Got Mail than the ubiquitous Hallmark holiday romances that clog up the airwaves, Dash & Lily stars Austin Abrams as Dash, a cynical Upper East Side teen hiding from the holidays in his father’s penthouse, and Midori Francis as Lily, an optimistic oddball whose trying to weather Christmas in the East Village while her parents are in Fiji. Though the two teens seem like polar opposites, they fall for each other’s personalities via the red notebook.

Decider caught up with Levy recently to chat about Dash & Lily, the status of Shadow and Bone and Stranger Things 4, and what could come next for the recently-cancelled I Am Not Okay With This.

DECIDER: I’m just curious what was it about Dash & Lily that drew you to the material? What made you so excited about it?

SHAWN LEVY: Well, I guess it was a number of things. Mainly, I love populist, feel good storytelling. I actually believe that entertainment should be joyful, and filled with humanity and warmth. I was looking to do a television equivalent to some of the romantic comedy movies that I remember being so filled with delight. Movies like Love Actually and Serendipity, to name just a few. When we read Dash & Lily, it felt like: “Here is a chance to do a feel good, New York-set, holiday rom-com with very specific characters.” And characters I haven’t seen in other romantic comedies, which made it super interesting.

You mentioned how you like rom-coms, I do too, but I’m a little cold on the Hallmark-style Christmas rom-com myself. Were you at all apprehensive about the clichés attached to the holiday rom-com?

Anytime you believe in something as a show or a movie, you have to, at a certain point, trust your gut and quiet those outside voices. If I believed in stigmas, I would have never done a TV show about kids that wasn’t for kids. And that show became Stranger Things. Nobody, nobody wanted a show with kids that wasn’t for kids. Similarly, for everyone who will say, “Oh, the rom-com form is so tired. Hasn’t it been done every which way already?” A, no. B, not like this.

I’ve talked to Dash & Lily creator Joe Tracz and one of the things we talked about is how wonderful it was to film mostly on location in New York City. I’m curious: obviously when you film on location, it can be cost-prohibitive. Do you think, ultimately, it was worth all the work of doing it on location?

Yeah, I think there is a certain production value and magic to New York City that is unique in the world. It’s why, for every dummy who says, “New York is done. New York is empty. New York is over,” I point to New York City as proof of the opposite. Proof of the singular magical quality of the city. And we wanted that quality to be both the backdrop of the show, but also built into the DNA of the show.

I know you’re also a director. When you’re producing a show, when do you decide to go in as a director, and when do you decide to stand back and just put your producer magic on the program?

In general, I only say yes to directing things that I feel I can do better than any other director I know. And I felt like — especially with a director like Brad Silberling, who did our first two; frankly, all of our directors — I felt really confident that we had this roster of directors who were actor-savvy, knew how to bring style but also sensitivity to performances. And frankly, maybe the shorter answer is: I am so busy and so overcommitted already, between the movies I’m doing and the episodes I do every year on Stranger Things. I wanted someone whose attention could be more exclusively focused on Dash & Lily.

Obviously you mentioned Stranger Things sort of being a huge hit for you guys and Netflix. Since then, I know 21 Laps has started to build up a stable of series, whether it’s Unsolved Mysteries or I Am Not Okay With This, which I loved, and obviously, Dash & Lily. They all seem to be very different. What makes a 21 Laps show now, for you, when you’re looking at material?

I think it’s not a secret that our next series is Shadow and Bone which is similarly very different. It’s a massive, epic fantasy series based on a bestselling book series.

A 21 Laps show or movie is defined by its warmth and humanity. It does not matter if it’s genre, mystery, comedy, drama, rom-com. Everything I do, and everything my company does has to have optimism, hope, humanism, warmth, and themes of connection. I will never do a show or a movie that’s rooted in cynicism, because there’s plenty of that in the real world already. I don’t support it, and I definitely don’t want to add to it. I want to combat it.

On that note, you mentioned Shadow and Bone. I know I have friends who are obsessed with that book series. But there have been a number of fantasy series, not only on Netflix, but elsewhere. There’s just a lot of fantasy out there. What makes Shadow and Bone stand out from something like Cursed or The Witcher, in your mind?

I would say this: it’s been an interesting six months. Because one byproduct of the pandemic is: we have had a lot of extra time to focus on the storytelling of Shadow and Bone, and to really service the character storylines. So yes: it’s filled with spectacle. It’s filled with awesome visual effects. But it is rooted, like the books, in characters, romance, yearning, hatred, love. Like Stranger Things, Shadow and Bone is a big visual genre piece of storytelling that is always anchored in character story. That’s a unique quality to our show.

Can I just ask: did you guys finish filming on that before the pandemic? Or is it still in production?

Nope, we finished.

Oh, okay. Do you have any estimation of when it might be hitting Netflix?

I’m afraid I don’t quite yet. But soon.

And I have to ask: Stranger Things 4, you guys are back up and running and filming. How’s it going with the COVID precautions? Were you able to tighten the stories and scripts with that downtime as well?

We were able — [Laughs]. So, the downtime allowed us to do something we’ve never done, which is to finish all the screenplays before we shoot the bulk of the season. We’ve never done that. The Duffers are always writing while we’re making the current season. This year, they were able to finish all the episodes. We’re able to schedule more wisely. It also allowed them to polish the scripts with the time that they’ve never had before. The quality of the scripts illustrate this.

Season 4 is insane, and incredibly strong. Huge in scope. Way bigger than we’ve ever done. But also, all of the warmhearted character storytelling that our audience wants and expects from Stranger Things. For production, I shot a chunk of time in February and March before we had to shut down. The Duffers are back at it, because we spread out the work. It’s going well. It was, like, a million meetings about the COVID protocols that are necessary to keep everyone safe. But now that we’re actually in the midst of it, this new normal has become the way we work. The precautions are always rigorously upheld. We’re finding it’s quite possible to do good and inspired work within those protocols.

Just following up there, I know Jonathan Entwistle has talked on the record how the cost of COVID protocols sort of mired the chances of having another season of I Am Not Okay With This. What was your take on the cancellation? Is it ever going to be possible to resurrect it somewhere else, or somewhere down the line when COVID isn’t as omnipresent?

We were definitely heartbroken that we went from anticipating production of Season 2 of I Am Not Okay With This, to, “Oh, wait. Things have changed.” That was definitely a small heartbreak. While I don’t see a path to production for Season 2 right now, we are very busy strategizing how those characters and that story might continue to be told in some fashion, someday. Because that was a rich world of characters and mythology. The fan engagement with I Am Not Okay With This was so passionate and appreciated. It’s too heartbreaking to end that story here. So we shall see.

Dash & Lily premieres on Netflix on Tuesday, November 10.

Watch Dash & Lily on Netflix