Variety: HBO Acquires Andrew Callaghan’s Channel 5 Documentary About Jan. 6 Riot, Produced by A24

Story from Variety:

Andrew Callaghan, the 25-year-old gonzo journalist who has grown to fame with his Channel 5 YouTube documentaries, is taking his next project to HBO. The company has acquired his documentary about the Jan. 6 insurrection, Variety can exclusively reveal.

The documentary will follow Callaghan’s “wild RV journey through America in the months leading up to the January 6 Capitol Riot.” Callaghan directs and serves as an executive producer, alongside A24. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, of the comedy duo Tim & Eric, also executive produce. The doc is currently untitled and does not yet have a release date.

Callaghan has become well known for his dry humor, eccentric interview subjects and documenting his RV travels across the United States, and even internationally. In 2019, he began posting short videos of his interviews on the YouTube channel All Gas No Brakes. Some of his most popular videos, which have reached millions of views, have included interviews at the viral Area 51 raid in 2019, a flat Earth conference and the Burning Man music festival. During the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Callaghan’s videos moved in a more serious, news-heavy direction. He traveled to Minneapolis three days after the murder of George Floyd to cover the aftermath, and he documented anti-mask protests and other public gatherings in the midst of the pandemic.

In 2021, Callaghan and his team left All Gas No Brakes to start their own YouTube channel, titled Channel 5, which has since garnered more than two million subscribers. Under Channel 5, Callaghan has traveled to Ukraine to cover the Russian invasion, created a one-hour documentary about the People’s Convoy trucking across the U.S. and interviewed Jake Angeli, better known as the QAnon shaman who is serving a 41-month prison sentence for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Fellow producers on the documentary include Matt Dines, Jonah Hill, Ali Goodwin (for Strong Baby Productions), Dave Kneebone and Janel Kranking (for Abso Lutely Productions), and Max Benator.