Ted Turner Is a ‘Legend, an American Hero’ in Trailer for ‘Call Me Ted’ Doc on Max, Which Shares a Parent Company with Turner

Max’s Ted Turner documentary series likes itself some Ted Turner. The trailer for the new docuseries “Call Me Ted” selects a few phrases to shower the media mogul with praise: “Mogul,” “Adventurer,” “Rebel,” “Risk Taker,” “Showman,” “Philanthropist,” and “Genius.” (There was also “Father,” but that one isn’t very subjective.)

But it’s not just the filmmakers who had glowing words about Turner, who is 85. His ex-wife Jane Fonda in trailer called him a “legend” and an “American hero”; U2 frontman Bono said Turner was “way more rock and roll than I am.”

Probably right around here we should point out that Max and the Turner cable channels (like TBS and TNT) share a parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. Turner has been a part of all the Warner Bros. iterations since 1996; HBO was part of Time Warner.

“Call Me Ted” takes audiences back to 1980 when Turner founded CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel. Turner has famously vowed that the channel will continue running until the end of the world. How serious was he? Serious enough to commission the infamous Turner Doomsday video to be played during Earth’s final minute.

Turner though founded the WTBS Superstation even before CNN’s launch. And of particular interest to IndieWire readers, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) launched in 1994.

Six-part series “Call Me Ted” is produced and directed by the husband and wife team Joni Levin (producer) and Keith Clarke (writer/director). The couple (producers and writer on 2016’s “Ben-Hur” remake, 2010’s “The Way Back”) first met Ted in the late ’80s when he purchased Levin’s first documentary (on John Huston). The trio worked together on TV series “MGM: When the Lion Roars,” which won Turner his first Emmy. They also collaborated on “In Search of Dr. Seuss,” which was nominated for seven Emmys.

Levin and Clarke raised their own financing for “Call Me Ted.” They received Turner’s blessing to make the doc five years ago.

“The docuseries has been a labor of love for me and Keith,” Levin told IndieWire via email. “It has also been an exercise in the importance of ‘getting it right’.  Ted is a once in a lifetime kind of human being and feel his story is one that we all need to take a page from. Through the successes and the failures, Ted has always believed that we — himself included — the citizens of the world, the ‘fans in the stadium’ can change the momentum of a game…be it climate, the environment, nuclear, or preserving our democracy.”

“Ted has lived the often-breathtaking life of a dozen fictional derring-do characters, but at the end of the day what he cared about was truth and facts,” Clarke said. “In today’s world where fact is fiction and truth is a lie, the world needs Ted Turner more than ever.”

“Call Me Ted” premieres November 13 on Max. Watch the trailer here: