THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA // JUNE | JULY 2023
FIVE PRODUCERS ON THE ART OF CLOSURE WHEN A BELOVED SERIES COMES TO AN END
P. 34
PGA AWARDS: STAR-STUDDED LOVEFEST
P. 42
SEQUEL RITES: ELIZABETH AVELLÁN AND BASIL IWANYK TALK BUILDING A FRANCHISE FROM SCRATCH
P. 52
“My advice? Put in the time. I spent 15 years absorbing and learning before I was ready to be a full-fledged producer. Ask questions. Love what you do. Understand that there is no substitute for doing the work.”
“‘BEEF’
“THE BEST AND MOST ADDICTIVE NEW SERIES THIS YEAR.”
PETER TRAVERS
PRODUCER KRISTIE MACOSKO KRIEGER (THE FABELMANS, WEST SIDE STORY) PRIDES HERSELF ON HER ACCESSIBILITY.
24 KRISTIE MACOSKO KRIEGER
The producer of the upcoming Maestro has honed her chops working with Steven Spielberg, among other brilliant mentors.
34 LAST HURRAHS
Five top producers expound on making a show’s final season a lasting statement.
42 STAR-STUDDED LOVEFEST
Heartfelt emotion was celebrated at the 34th Annual PGA Awards gala.
48 OPTIMISTIC AND UNFLAPPABLE
Nominees for the Zanuck Award addressed the challenges of COVID and maintaining a healthy equilibrium on set.
52 SEQUEL RITES
Elizabeth Avellan and Basil Iwanyk (Spy Kids and John Wick movies, respectively) talk sequels, and building a franchise from scratch.
James Schamus reminisces about The Wedding Banquet 30 years after it broke ground for greater representation of Asian and gay characters in movies.
BOARD OFFICERS
PRESIDENTS
Stephanie Allain
Donald De Line
VICE PRESIDENTS, MOTION PICTURES
Lauren Shuler Donner Chuck Roven
VICE PRESIDENTS, TELEVISION
Mike Farah Melvin Mar
TREASURER
Yolanda Cochran
VICE PRESIDENT, EASTERN REGION STEERING GROUP
Donna Gigliotti
VICE PRESIDENTS
Lynn Hylden Iris Ichishita
RECORDING SECRETARIES
Kristie Krieger Mike Jackson
PRESIDENTS EMERITI
Gail Berman Lucy Fisher DIRECTORS
Bianca Ahmadi
James P. Axiotis
Fred Berger
Hillary Corbin Huang
Melanie Cunningham
Jennifer Fox
Beth Fraikorn
Gary Goetzman
Lynn Kestin Sessler
Samie Kim Falvey
Rachel Klein
Dan Lin
James Lopez
Mark Maxey
Lori McCreary
Jacob Mullen
Jonathan Murray
Ravi Nandan
ASSOCIATE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Michelle Byrd
NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Susan Sprung
Richard Quan
Mark Roybal
Jillian Stein
Christina Lee Storm
Mimi Valdés
Angela Victor
John Walker
Lorin Williams
Nina Yang Bongiovi
PARTNER & BRAND PUBLISHER
Emily S. Baker
EDITOR
Steve Chagollan
CREATIVE DIRECTOR COPY EDITOR
Ajay Peckham Bob Howells
PHOTOGRAPHER
Tameka Jacobs
ADVERTISING
Ken Rose
818-312-6880 | KenRose@mac.com
MANAGING PARTNERS
Charles C. Koones Todd Klawin
Vol. XIX No. 3
Produced By is published by
Producers Guild of America.
OUTSTANDING LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES
BAFTA
“AN ABSOLUTE MUST-SEE. IT LEAVES NO STONE UNTURNED.”
The Emmy-nominated, award-winning producer is an XR industry leader who is determined to bring augmented reality to the masses through a mobile video game.
Written By Daron James
Jake Sally is infatuated with augmented reality (AR). The executive producer of the miniseries The Messy Truth in VR with Brie Larson and former head of development at RYOT—Verizon Media’s branded content studio—Sally is the chief operating officer of Jadu. The company launched in 2000 and has since evolved from creating shareable social holograms to producing one of the most immersive, next-gen multiplayer AR fighting games for mobile devices.
In his career, Sally has produced more than 35 different extended reality (XR) experiences. XR is an umbrella term for augmented reality, virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). His first major project, Terminal 3, was an interactive documentary that allowed viewers to determine the fate of airline passengers entering the U.S. He followed the effort with festival favorite A Jester’s Tale recreating Martin Luther King’s march on Washington for Time magazine, and a holographic concert for the band Palaye Royale called Curse of Calypso, allowing fans to listen to music and interact with the rock stars.
With Jadu, Sally is fixated on scaling the community while also producing the game, pitching potential investors and overseeing a thriving tech company. “We have a team of 35 AR and VR experts, and now that the tech stack in your phone is capable of delivering a high-end AR experience, we are building a scaled mobile game.” The downloadable app (iOS or Android) is akin to iconic games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. But what separates Jadu is that players can use avatars to combat each other in different parts of the world. “You can be in Tokyo, I can be in Denver, and we can have a shared AR experience,” says Sally.
The biggest hurdle in building a successful XR company has been user adoption. “There’s a fundamental fear people have of new technology, but once you get them doing the experience, all of that changes,” Sally says. “Even with
The beginning of the end
“ONE OF TELEVISION’S BEST DRAMAS
EVER.”
AR headsets like the Microsoft HoloLens that has won a lot of awards, at the end of the day, you are showing it to more or less the same people who at most are paying a ticket price. If you can tell people to go to their app store and download a game, and in 30 seconds you’re in, that’s great.”
The ability to download Jadu from an app store and play without a specialized headset are keys to the company’s growth. But the niche also puts Jadu in competition with any video game on any platform. “When you’re making something on AR, you have to ask why this is a better game in augmented reality than a traditional mobile game,” says Sally. “Because you are asking more of people, we focus on speed of iteration.”
The Jadu team has built a flexible production system that allows it to shift toward emerging player behavior, unlike traditional studio games that are created and released with limited updates, or none at all.
Jadu finds itself in a sweet spot. It’s more than sitting on your couch playing Farmville, but it’s less than putting on a headset and moving the coffee table. For player behavior on mobile devices, Sally finds that “shorter AR sessions are perfect.” Jadu players can get into quick sparring matches with their friends that are not ultratechnical but still create a high-intensity, adrenaline-pumping moment that brings a lot of novelty to everyday life.
From a community outreach standpoint, Jadu has created grant programs where people interested can build IP with Jadu to expand the ecosystem. “It’s been a fun community engagement tool. A lot of traditional games don’t take that approach,” says Sally. Community feedback and implementation is an area where Jadu continues to thrive.
Sally admits that the project never ends, and that it “may sound fun or horrible, (depending on) whoever you are.” With Jadu, they want to take AR to the mass market where every single person can have the same “wow” experience on their phone.
“The best quote I have gotten the last couple of years from a player is it’s the first time their phone felt magical,” says Sally. “That’s the crux of it. Jadu means ‘magic’ in Urdu, which is very poignant for us.”
“For large file storage we use Google Workspace and for project management we use Asana pretty religiously, but it only works if everyone commits to it. For complex problem-solving, we use Figma,
and for brainstorming sessions, we use FigJam, which is one of their subtools. I am designilliterate, so I think Figma has the easiest ability to make something look really good. If you like Google Slides, Figma is a better version of it with no constraints.”
“We have been using ChatGPT and Midjourney to streamline teams. For someone who is not creative, Midjourney is unparalleled in being able to quickly get everyone to dream the same dream. If we need to do something with one of our fighters, like a cosmetic breakdown of the look and feel of it, we’ll put together variations using Midjourney. It gets everyone marching to the same beat before we move into a more formal production process.” (In layman’s terms, Midjourney is an AI-based program that generates images based on what a user inputs. Here it’s being used like storyboards, in a sense, allowing the team to visualize concepts faster.)
“I play a lot of video games. The Last of Us is my favorite game of all time. I find that the ability to step out while still doing something moderately active and social refills my cup.”
“It’s a bit of a fool’s errand to predict the future of the XR space. A lot of things are colliding simultaneously. We have 5G networks, pixel streaming to mobile is viable, LIDAR is being built into the multiple phone generations, and the raw processing power of mobile devices has gotten so much better. Not to mention machine learning and computer vision is really getting robust. Our tech is built around a remote multiplayer, so you and I can do a shared game experience with our avatars. Most AR is firstperson, where you are the character, but we took a traditional third-person approach—you are manipulating an avatar in space. It is a viable and an enjoyable experience. Long term, we want millions of people to find magic in the phone in their pocket. I think that’s a very achievable goal, especially looking at the arc of where the tech is at now.”
With her own production shingle, ATLANTA-BASED Autumn Bailey-Ford starts her day before dawn with overseas calls, and plows through as many as a half dozen scripts a day.
In the producer’s Own Words
Television and movies have been a part of my life since childhood. As a teen, I spent countless hours watching blackand-white movies and daydreaming about what went into creating them. But I never wanted to be an actor. I knew my magic was behind the scenes. So I’d check out books on filmmaking from the library, and in high school, I got involved with the performing arts department and helped with lighting, camera work and whatever else I could get my hands on. By the time I enrolled in college, at Shaw University, I was known as the “film girl.” I’d record all the on-campus events, and a lot of students thought I’d eventually become a director or videographer. But producing was always my goal. Three years after graduation, I created Autumn Bailey Entertainment.
Today through my company, I’ve produced over 40 films, helped numerous creators secure distribution deals, and worked to develop up-andcoming talent. Currently, I’m excited about the release of my first studio film, On a Wing and a Prayer, now streaming on Prime Video. Also, we just announced a partnership with Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Productions to create The Backup, which will star Keke Palmer. A lot goes into making these things come to fruition, and there is no typical day for me. But generally, it goes something like this.
Morning
My mornings can start as early as 3 a.m. I work on a lot of international projects, so I need to be awake when my colleagues are. I’m developing a few projects in London and South Africa, so this early schedule has become routine. But it doesn’t bother me. I like the mornings, and I’ve always been a hustler. I believe in working hard. That means doing what you have to do to get the job done.
Production days follow a different routine. First, I arrive and do my best to greet everyone, because I like my cast and crew to feel like family. Then I grab some breakfast, which consists of bacon and ginger ale, delivered with a chef’s kiss. Then I meet with my director to talk through the day and check in with actors. From there, it’s a lot of watching monitors to ensure everything runs smoothly. If things are going well, I might shift gears and go to my office to take calls, send emails or drop in with different departments.
Afternoon
When I’m not in active production, lunchtimes can vary. Sometimes I may head to a creative workspace like The Gathering Spot in Atlanta. There I’m meeting with writers or actors to chat and discuss a project, and at other times I’m juggling Zoom calls. Unless it’s Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday—those days are reserved for reading scripts. On those days I might hop out of the house to grab a quick bite and then return right back to reading. On a typical script day, I read four to six new scripts.
During a shoot, I usually take lunch on set to see how things unfolded. In between all of that, I could be doing a host of other tasks, like taking calls with investors, making distribution calls and sometimes putting out fires. It’s a lot, but I do my best to solve problems and create a relaxing and safe environment for everyone.
Evening
My evenings are spent with two of my favorite things: books and my family. As things slow down for the day, I may dig into a new read or watch a good movie. I enjoy spending this time with my lovable and supportive husband and my son. I work hard for these special moments, so I try to relax and enjoy them.
“SHARP AND SEARINGLY FUNNY.”
FOR YOUR EMMY ® CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES
Produced By trains the spotlight on some of the Guild’s newest members, and offers a glimpse at what makes them tick.
MONET CLAYTON
Clayton gravitates toward character-driven dramas that shine a light on realworld issues. She is the producer of Every Note Played, an adaptation of The New York Times best-selling novel of the same name by Lisa Genova (Still Alice), with Björn Runge attached to direct. She is also producing the feature Boundless, about a female Korean War hero in the U.S. military starring Kim Joo-Ryung (Squid Game). Additionally, she was a coproducer on the indie feature Every Breath You Take (2021) with Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan—currently streaming on Hulu—and was an associate producer for the indie feature film Inheritance, starring Lily Collins and Simon Pegg, which premiered at Tribeca and is currently streaming on Netflix.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO GO INTO PRODUCING?
Being able to help elevate important stories so they can help others feel seen, understood, and less alone through a character’s journey. Also, being able to collaborate with artists and empower them to create their best work together.
WHAT’S THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED ABOUT PRODUCING?
FEEL FREE TO SHARE WHO PROVIDED IT.
The best piece of advice I ever got was from the incredible (film and TV producer) Kristin Hahn, who said, “Sometimes you just have to trust your creative instincts and take the leap of faith.” It came at a time when, as a younger female producer, I really needed to hear that. Her support and advice really made an impact and have stayed with me ever since.
Originally from the South Shore of Massachusetts, Andrade is a producer focused on postproduction. In this regard she has acted as postproduction supervisor on such series as AMC’s The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. She graduated to associate producer on the latter. Her credits also include postproduction coordinator on the BET series Boomerang (2019–20), and she was a member of the production staff on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy
AT WHAT POINT IN YOUR LIFE DID YOU DISCOVER WHAT A PRODUCER BRINGS TO THE TABLE? When I began working in postproduction I really got a sense of what all producers on a production bring to the table.
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT PRODUCERS?
That they are never boots on the ground with the crew members. Producers are heavily involved with all the departments.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STRENGTHS?
A laser-like focus on details, an uncanny ability to understand the nuances of production that will affect an editorial pipeline, and perpetual optimism in finding a creative solution to any given problem.
Kristie Macosko Krieger, whose producing credits include The Post, The Fabelmans and the upcoming Maestro, has learned from the best.
Interview by Steve Chagollan | Photographed by Tameka Jacobs
Kristie Macosko Krieger prefers not being the center of attention. As a producer who’s spent considerable time working closely with the likes of Steven Spielberg—who has seen everything and knows everyone, and Tony Kushner, who is never at a loss for words—she prefers that her more high-profile colleagues do the talking.
“He speaks in sound bites,” she says of Spielberg, by way of contrasting her relative unease in discussing her process. Macosko Krieger relays this thought as she squirms through a photo session at her Hancock Park home in early May, clearly uncomfortable but powering through. The location, instead of Amblin’s hacienda-style compound on the Universal lot, was chosen out of sensitivity to not cross the picket line of striking writers, who began their walkout a week earlier.
With Spielberg, Macosko Krieger learned directly from the master. He has directed four films that have earned them both nominations for the PGA and the Academy’s top honors: The Fabelmans (2022), West Side Story (2021), The Post (2017) and Bridge of Spies (2015).
“To be an effective producer you need a lot of knowledge and practical training because of the unexpected challenges that often surprise even the most experienced producers,” Spielberg tells Produced By. “Kristie is at the top of that list, and I’ve been keeping that list for enough years to be able to unequivocally say she’s the best there is!”
Kathleen Kennedy has also known Macosko Krieger dating back to the latter’s early days at Amblin—a 20-something dynamo who was learning on the job.
“I’ve worked with Kristie since she became Steven Spielberg’s assistant, stepping into the shoes I once filled, and I’ve watched her grow into an exceptional producer,” says Kennedy. “Her ability to lead with an exceptional sense of humor is her gift. You’re laughing while she’s just cut 20% of your budget. I’m incredibly lucky to consider her a colleague as well as a friend.”
Currently, Macosko Krieger is in post on the Leonard Bernstein movie Maestro, on which Bradley Cooper performs quadruple duty as star, director, cowriter and fellow producer. Martin Scorsese was once slated to direct before the project fell into Spielberg’s hands. When other commitments got in the way, Cooper, who was offered the lead, suggested
he take over the helming reins. As proof that he could handle it, Cooper showed Spielberg, his wife—Kate Capshaw—fellow screenwriter Josh Singer and Macosko Krieger his take on A Star Is Born before hardly anybody else had seen it. “Within the first 20 minutes, Steven leaned over to Bradley and told him the job was his,” recalls Macosko Krieger.
“Kristie has been a very hands-on producer,” says Cooper. “During preproduction, we worked together daily as it related to everything from liaising with the studio, the family, casting, schedules, locations, all of the moving parts that involve working with a real orchestra, training and rehearsals, etc. Kristie was instrumental during that process. She was on set daily during the production of the film. She’s collaborative and direct and was always ready to dig in when challenges arose—which was every day. Knowing someone is there to support your vision as a storyteller and to help move that vision forward on the business side, I felt very lucky to have her in my corner.”
Despite Maestro’s looming release date in late 2023 from Netflix, and several projects in various states of preproduction, Macosko Krieger took time to address some questions about her career.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: WHAT DID YOU STUDY AT UC DAVIS, AND HOW DID THAT LEAD TO A CAREER IN THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS?
I graduated with a degree in sociology, which is probably the best degree to have when you are dealing with the vast universe of people and personalities I engage with on a daily basis.
WHAT DID YOUR PARENTS DO FOR A LIVING? HOW DID THEY VIEW YOUR LONG-TERM CAREER GOALS?
My father was an electrical engineer and my mother was a secretary-turnedhuman resources manager. They were supportive of any job/career that I wanted to pursue—as long as it came with health insurance. My husband, Mark, is a doctor, so maybe my parents
“To be an effective producer you need a lot of knowledge and practical training because of the unexpected challenges that often surprise even the most experienced producers. Kristie is at the top of that list.”
—STEVEN SPIELBERG
FOR YOUR EMMY ® CONSIDERATION OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
“ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SHOWS ON TELEVISION. THIS SEASON WILL TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY.” FORBES
“ THE SERIES IS IN A NEW, FASCINATING ERA.”
VARIETY
really did know how important health care is for everyone.
TELL US ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SHOAH FOUNDATION AND DREAMWORKS/AMBLIN, AND HOW YOU CAME TO BE RECRUITED BY THE SPIELBERG TEAM.
I started working at Amblin as an assistant in the publicity department in 1994 and subsequently moved over to the Shoah Foundation early in its inception in 1995. At the time, the Shoah Foundation was on the Universal lot right behind Amblin. Bonnie Curtis, who was Steven’s assistant and later became a producer, was on the hunt for a new assistant, and asked me several times if I would meet with Steven. I politely declined, because I was happy in the PR department—I thought I could be an effective publicist. But being a consummate producer, Bonnie would not take no for an answer. In 1997 I became Steven’s assistant and moved from the Shoah Foundation back to Amblin.
YOU’VE HAD A FRONT-ROW SEAT IN OBSERVING SOME OF THE BIGGEST-
SCALE PRODUCTIONS IN PROCESS, INCLUDING SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, WAR OF THE WORLDS AND MUNICH WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF STEVEN SPIELBERG, AND WHAT WAS THAT LEARNING CURVE LIKE?
What’s interesting is that my first impression of Steven was actually an extension of knowing him through the Shoah Foundation. I was struck by his innate humanity and desire to make the world a better place. When I began as Steven’s assistant, there was a three-year period between Saving Private Ryan and AI where he was solely focused on development.
During those three years, I was able to gain in-office learning experience before I ever set foot on a soundstage. This provided me a runway to learn, and by the time Steven began production on AI, his labor of love for Stanley Kubrick, I felt like I was ready to handle the responsibilities and challenges of being on a set. It also helped that AI had two amazing producers, who turned out to be
mentors for me, and both of whom were Steven’s former assistants— Kathleen Kennedy and Bonnie Curtis.
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008) WAS YOUR FIRST PRODUCTION CREDIT, AS ASSOCIATE PRODUCER. TELL US ABOUT THAT LEAP IN RESPONSIBILITIES AND WHAT IT ENTAILED.
I had the best kind of learning curve because I had hands-on experience over a wide range of movies. Following AI, we did Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds and Munich. Every film I worked on taught me more and more, and I took on more and more responsibility. So by the time Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull happened, I was fully immersed in the world of production. Working as an associate producer was a logical next step.
YOUR FIRST LEAD PRODUCING CREDIT WAS ON BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015). WHAT WAS THAT GRADUATION OF DUTIES LIKE?
When Kathy Kennedy left to run Lucasfilm in 2012, it was a natural evolution for me to produce Bridge of Spies. I’d been working for Steven for 15 years before I got my first straight producing credit. After 15 years, in any kind of collaboration, you have a shorthand communication, and because you have a deep understanding of the way someone works and thinks, you’re able to anticipate choices and circumvent problems in advance.
AT THE PGA MORNING PANEL PRIOR TO THE PGA AWARDS A FEW MONTHS BACK, EVERYBODY WAS ASKED WHAT THEIR “SUPERPOWER” AS A PRODUCER WAS. WHAT’S YOURS? Accessibility. I think everyone understands that I am available and approachable regardless of where anyone may fall on the call sheet.
WHAT WAS THE PRODUCTION TEAM’S APPROACH TO WEST SIDE STORY—THE OPERATING PRINCIPLE FOR CREATING AN ADAPTATION OF THE PLAY THAT STAYED TRUE TO THE STORY BUT ALSO CREATED SOMETHING NEW AND UNIQUE?
No one more than Steven appreciated, shared and understood the enduring reverence for the original stage play and 1961 film. What’s so wonderful about West Side Story, and its origin story, Romeo and Juliet, is that it can be reimagined and reinterpreted in so many different ways, for every generation, across so many languages and cultures. That is the genius of the original story by (Arthur) Laurents, music by Bernstein, lyrics by Sondheim and choreography by Robbins, and we worked closely with those estates to ensure they understood that our goal was to reimagine West Side Story, not remake the Robert Wise 1961 film.
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF CASTING IN WEST SIDE STORY AND THE ROLE THAT YOU PLAY IN CASTING IN GENERAL?
In 1961, the filmmakers had the option of hiring an actress, Natalie Wood, and then dubbing her singing voice with Marni Nixon. Obviously, that wasn’t an option for us. We wanted to find actors who were
triple threats.
We conducted an extensive search that included open casting calls in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago and San Juan. Our casting director, Cindy Tolan, looked at more than 30,000 performers. This project became Steven’s broadest casting search since Schindler’s List in 1993. During this search, I worked closely with Steven and Cindy, as well as our choreographer, vocal producer and writer, to find the best possible cast for us. That said, my role in the casting process was making sure that all the voices in the room reached a consensus across three disciplines—dance, vocals and acting.
WHEN YOU’RE WORKING WITH AN ACTOR-PRODUCER WHO’S JUGGLING BETWEEN PLAYING THE LEAD ROLE AND DIRECTING A RATHER AMBITIOUS BIOPIC, HOW DO YOU AS A PRODUCER MAKE THAT PERSON’S LIFE EASIER AND THE MOST FRUITFUL?
The movie is not actually a biopic. It’s a story about love and the marriage of Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre that spans roughly 50 years of their life together. I will leave it to Bradley (Cooper) to discuss his process, but my job is to take care of the business of making the movie and all that entails—liaising with the studio, other producers, the estate, etc. I hope that this allowed Bradley to devote his time and energy to creative decision-making as a writer, a director, a producer and one of the stars of the film as we mounted this project and while we were on set every day.
THE FABELMANS WAS CLEARLY STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MOST PERSONAL FILM TO DATE. WERE THERE ANY CHALLENGES ON THE FILM BEYOND MAINTAINING A SAFE EMOTIONAL SPACE FOR HIM TO OPERATE?
We were set to film one of the pivotal scenes in the movie, but we were shooting out of order, as it was early on in the production and one of the first scenes on set for Michelle Williams. Mitzi (Williams) is up on a hill with Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle), telling him she’s going to stay with her husband, Burt (Paul Dano), and keep their family together, even though she’s in love with
another man. The conversation happens in the midst of the family’s drive from Arizona to their new home in Northern California.
Steven really wanted to see the shift from Arizona to California, but what he had seen in his mind’s eye did not match the terrain we were looking at in Palmdale. Steven walked the set for about an hour, and he said, “The is not how I see this. This is a change in setting, a change in feeling, a change in narrative, and I need to see a change in the set design.” So I looked at Steven and said, “We can’t shoot this today. You don’t want to shoot this today. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t look right from the story you’re trying to tell.”
We decided to punt on the shooting of that scene until later in our schedule so we had time to find a better location for the narrative of the story.
There are many complications with that: Your schedule is upended, and you’re shooting something completely different. We scrambled, scouted a new location, and decided we would shoot it way deeper into the schedule up in Los Olivos, in wine country, where there was a lot of changing landscape, and you can see that you’re on your way up to Northern California.
It was better for the scene and it was better for the actors, because Michelle at that point was four additional weeks in front of the camera as Mitzi Fabelman. We absorbed the cost, and we kept the movie on schedule.
YOU’VE WORKED ALONGSIDE KATHLEEN KENNEDY IN AT LEAST A COUPLE FILMS, INCLUDING AS A FELLOW EXEC PRODUCER ON THE BFG (2016), AND AS A COPRODUCER ON LINCOLN (2012).
HOW HAS SHE INFLUENCED YOU AS A PROFESSIONAL IN THE INDUSTRY AND IN NAVIGATING A WORLD THAT’S STILL MOSTLY POPULATED AND RUN BY MEN?
Steven has always championed female producers and executives. From the earliest founding days of Amblin, Steven had, in hiring Kathy and Frank (Marshall), insisted on a woman at the highest level of executive leadership. And, as I stated before, I had world-class mentors in Kathy and Bonnie. Women have always held positions
of power and influence at Amblin, including Laurie McDonald, Stacey Snider, Leslee Feldman, Holly Bario, Terry Press and more.
TELL US ABOUT THE VFX IN READY PLAYER ONE AND RECREATING THE VR EXPERIENCE. HOW DO YOU WORK WITH TECHNOLOGY THAT’S ABOVE MOST PEOPLE’S HEADS AND NOT BE INTIMIDATED BY IT?
You hire amazing department heads. Steven has taught me that you hire the best people for the job and get out of their way and let them do what they do best. It was no different in this case. We worked with ILM and Digital Domain. Steven has always been a groundbreaker in visual effects—films like Jurassic Park, Close Encounters and War of the Worlds, among others. Most of this technology Steven helped to create by constantly pushing the envelope. He encourages his team to innovate and experiment.
WHEN YOU PRODUCE FOR TELEVISION, SUCH AS THE FILM OSLO (2021) FOR HBO, DO YOU GO ABOUT THINGS DIFFERENTLY?
We tackled this exactly how we would tackle any film. Adapting to scale for television, whether that’s casting, budget, design, crafts—the most important thing is to do justice to the material. The mandate to produce quality is the same whether we are doing films or television.
YOU AND STEVEN SPIELBERG HAVE WORKED WITH CERTAIN ROLE PLAYERS IN THE CRAFTS REPEATEDLY: DP JANUSZ
KAMINSKI, EDITOR MICHAL KAHN, PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICK CARTER, AND THE LIST GOES ON. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF DOING REPEAT BUSINESS WITH TOP-FLIGHT ARTISANS? AND WHEN IS IT APPROPRIATE TO VEER FROM THAT DYNAMIC AND WIDEN THE TALENT POOL?
Obviously, when doing West Side Story we needed a choreographer. The material dictates when and how you widen the talent pool. We added Jeanine Tesori, Justin Peck and Gustavo Dudamel because we were doing a musical. On a movie like The Fabelmans, it was better to stay with Steven’s long-time family of collaborators due to the deeply personal nature of the film. There have been a few times where scheduling conflicts necessitated expanding the inner circle. For example, on Bridge of Spies, (composer) John Williams had a conflict, so we brought in Thomas Newman—and were very pleased with the results.
DO YOU SEE YOURSELF TRANSITIONING FROM PRODUCER TO ANOTHER DISCIPLINE AT ANY POINT?
I’m uniquely suited to producing—I cannot write and I cannot direct!
ADVICE TO UP-AND-COMING PLAYERS WHO’D LIKE TO DO WHAT YOU DO?
My advice? Put in the time. I spent 15 years absorbing and learning before I was ready to be a full-fledged producer. Ask questions— even at the risk of appearing like a rookie. Embrace and learn from mistakes. Love what you do. And understand that in the end, there is no substitute for doing the work.
PRODUCED BY TRAINS THE SPOTLIGHT ON SOME OF THE GUILD’S NEWEST MEMBERS, AND OFFERS A GLIMPSE AT WHAT MAKES THEM TICK.
JAMES SHIN
As executive producer of film and TV at Scooter Braun’s SB Projects, Shin helps shepherd the diversified media and entertainment company’s various ventures that integrate music, film, television, technology and philanthropy. He’s an executive producer on the series Dave for FX, and Neon for Netflix.
AT WHAT POINT IN YOUR LIFE DID YOU DISCOVER WHAT A PRODUCER BRINGS TO THE TABLE?
Working on productions early in my career as a music supervisor and seeing what a producer does first-hand.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO GO INTO PRODUCING?
Watching Jerry Bruckheimer and Brian Grazer movies growing up.
WHAT’S ON YOUR PRODUCING BUCKET LIST?
Producing a large-scale action movie with a killer soundtrack.
“ THE ICONIC DUO OF HARRISON FORD AND HELEN MIRREN HEADS AN IMPRESSIVE CAST ALONG WITH CINEMATIC-QUALITY VISUALS, SPRAWLING SET PIECES AND A MYRIAD OF PROMISING STORYLINES.”
“BRILLIANT. A SPRAWLING SAGA OF LAND, POWER AND AMBITION.”
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Tony Soprano getting whacked to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believing.” The cast of Seinfeld serving time in jail. Bob Newhart waking up to realize his entire six-season Newhart series was just a dream.
Memorable TV finales, even controversial ones, have the power to stir audiences who often feel strongly about how their favorite characters should fare. The choices that lead up to whether a show ends with a bang or a whimper often draw on time-honored storytelling traditions ranging from weddings, tearful farewells, death, villainy brought low, a shocking reveal, a mystery solved.
Beyond the plotlines, producers riding herd on a TV show’s final run also need to navigate budgets, cast issues, locations and unforeseen circumstances.
So what does it take to craft a powerful swan-song season? Produced By checked in with five top TV producers who shared their approaches for bringing down the curtain on their most recent shows.
For The Kominsky Method showrunner Chuck Lorre, closure is key. The comedy, starring Michael Douglas as the vain actor-turned-teacher Sandy Kominsky, ended its second season in limbo when costar Alan Arkin, who plays Sandy’s sardonic agent Norman, decided not to return. “He was pretty clear, given the pandemic, his age, his vulnerability,” says Lorre. “It was just not in the cards. So then the question became: Can we continue?”
Lorre made his case to Netflix for a third and final Kominsky season. “I felt very strongly that we should continue after the death of this beloved character Norman.” Netflix agreed and financed a six-episode closer. “The story that came out of season three was really gratifying because we get to see Sandy walk through the loss of his best friend, and we also see his dreams come true late in life when he gets the starring role in The Old Man and the Sea.”
A powerful addition to the cast helped buoy the final episodes when Kathleen Turner, famously paired with Douglas in Romancing the Stone (1984), joined the regular cast as Sandy’s ex-wife, Rox. Lorre notes, “Our final season allowed Sandy to make things right with his ex-wife and grow into this caregiver role, as opposed to the narcissistic take-care-of-me, center-of-the-world person.”
Logistically, Lorre faced the challenges of filming during the early days of COVID. “There was this cloud hanging over the whole thing,” he says. Despite
Producers behind The Kominsky Method, Insecure, Ozark, Ray Donovan and Brooklyn Nine-Nine expound on the logic behind ending a show’s run in a way that provides closure, or not.Michael Douglas, center, as acting guru Sandy Kominsky, who grapples with the loss of his agent and best friend Norman (Alan Arkin, who decided not to return for the show’s third and final season) in The Kominsky Method.
observing COVID protocols (“We were all wearing masks and then putting shields over the masks”), the production shut down numerous times due to scattered positive tests, causing a ripple effect. “We lost Paul Reiser for 10 days,” recalls Lorre. “We lost Michael for a week because he was next to someone who had COVID and had to quarantine. A lot of stuff that we shot had to be pieced together with whoever was available. It became a daily thing: If the phone rings early in the morning, it’s always bad.”
Narratively, Lorre, who previously produced 12 seasons of The Big Bang Theory, followed his own muse without worrying about fan reactions. “I don’t look at the social media stuff,” he says. “Pandering is a slippery slope if you’re trying to entertain or address some mythical audience in your mind. I’m watching the show. Do I give a shit about these characters? Am I hoping they find happiness or love or career success? Am I rooting for them? For me, that’s the more honest path.”
When Insecure debuted in 2016 and quickly became a critically praised rom-com about Black professionals navigating single life in LA, showrunner Prentice Penny and creator-star Issa Rae knew exactly how many seasons—five—they envisioned for the show. HBO happily backed the plan. But when it came time to craft the final episode, Penny and his team got anxious about how to stick the landing.
“We didn’t figure out the finale until eight episodes in,” Penny says. “It’s funny because we never approached any other seasons or episodes like we did the finale. When you’re breaking episodes, you’re just going, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting twist.’ You don’t agonize over it. So that paralyzed us for a long time.”
According to Penny, the creative breakthrough came courtesy of Insecure writer-producer Amy Aniobi. “She said we’re always talking about how we have to land the plane. But the lives of these characters in the fictitious world will continue after the finale. So let’s think about it like, ‘We’re going to jump out of the plane right here, but the characters are going to continue. Don’t worry about landing the plane.’ That was such a huge fucking light bulb moment. It freed everything up.”
Penny, Rae, and company ultimately came up with a happy ending that fast-forwards through a year’s worth of drama pegged to the main character’s birthday. In the best rom-com tradition, Issa’s best friend, Molly (Yvonne Orji), has a big wedding. The series closes on Issa as she quietly celebrates her birthday with Lawrence (Jay Ellis) and his son.
“Issa called Lawrence her soulmate in an earlier season, so that just seemed right,” Penny says. “We also knew that at the end of the series, Issa needed to be secure in her insecurities. Throughout the whole show she’d been trying to rid herself of these feelings, but part of growing up is recognizing that those insecurities are not going to go anywhere. You need to ride the ebb and flow of them.”
Shooting of the final season took place between January and June of 2021, so the Insecure team could not escape COVID’s tentacles. “In our show there’s a lot of specificity in terms of being in LA,” says Penny. “That’s one of our big trademarks—to not be generic location-wise. But some places were closing because they just couldn’t stay open. The big thing I took out of it was, like, breathe. Just let it go. Which is not my default setting. My default setting is, ‘Let’s get it out!’ But that final season on Insecure, there was a lot of ‘Trust in the universe and something will circle back.’”
PRODUCED BY TRAINS THE SPOTLIGHT ON SOME OF THE GUILD’S NEWEST MEMBERS, AND OFFERS A GLIMPSE AT WHAT MAKES THEM TICK.
Jessica Held was most recently the head of TV at Mark Johnson’s Gran Via Productions, overseeing the launch of The Immortal Universe, AMC’s supernatural franchise based on the writings of Anne Rice. She produced Interview With the Vampire and co-executive produced Mayfair Witches. She was also an executive producer on Lucky Hank. Prior to Gran Via, Held served as an executive at Awesomeness Films, where she developed and coproduced the features To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018) and The Perfect Date (2019).
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT THE PRODUCER’S ROLE?
Anyone who thinks they don’t need producers. Every project has its own unique needs, some more or less than others. But everyone needs someone in their corner advocating for and helping to protect the integrity of the story you’re trying to tell.
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU AS A PRODUCER?
A deep desire to support people and projects that make audiences feel seen, and to provide a window into other worlds that create a sense of belonging beyond their own environments.
WHAT’S THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED ABOUT PRODUCING?
Don’t ever be the loudest person in the room.
When Ozark debuted on Netflix in the summer of 2017, the principals didn’t necessarily have an end game in mind, according to producer Patrick Markley. “We just figured we’d play out the show as long as the material was rich and we weren’t repeating ourselves.”
Markey credits showrunner Chris Mundy with mapping out the fourth and final season. Divided into two seven-episode story arcs, this “jumbo” season follows the final machinations of Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), his wife, Wendy (Laura Linney), and their two kids (Skylar Gaertner and Sofia Hublitz). Relocated from Chicago to the Ozarks, the Byrde family over the years consorted with Mexican drug dealers, outsmarted the FBI, tangled with opium-growing locals and covered up murders. It’s a lot of plot to keep track of, Markey acknowledges. “It was my responsibility to take this story off the page and get it onto the screen with all the collaborators, staying closely in touch with Chris as he monitored dailies to make sure we were keeping the story where he wanted it to be.”
The Ozark finale stayed true to the show’s dark tone when fan-favorite Ruth (Julia Garner) died in a nighttime ambush. “People were really upset that Ruth got killed,” Markey says. “People liked her a lot, so to see her get taken out by ‘Mama Cartel’ was upsetting to a lot of folks.”
Equally shocking: The final scene cuts to black after 14-year-old Jonah Byrde shoots a likable investigator who’s cracked the case of Wendy’s missing brother. “Chris crafted that ending over several seasons—how to get to the point of letting the Byrdes walk free when the investigator gets killed,” says Markey. “I liked the fact that there wasn’t a protagonist or antagonist or evil or good.
This was more subtle. They didn’t lay it on with a trowel. To me, this was kind of an elegant way to say, ‘Here’s the world we created, this is where these people are right now, thank you very much, see you next time.”
Ray Donovan also focused on a dysfunctional family riven by violence. But where Ozark enjoyed 14 episodes to wrap things up, the Liev Schreiber series came to a screeching halt in 2020 when Showtime unexpectedly canceled the series after its seventh season had aired.
“It was disappointing, and we were a little disheartened,” says producer John H. Radulovic. When the series moved after five seasons from Los Angeles to New York, Schreiber, showrunner David Hollander, and Radulovic had planned on three more East Coast seasons to bring down the curtain on fixer Ray Donovan and his criminally inclined family headed by the incorrigible patriarch Mickey (Jon Voight).
Instead, a new corporate regime deemed Ray Donovan too expensive. “At the thought of not being able to do season eight, we talked a great deal about the loose ends left at the end of season seven,” says Radulovic. “Is daughter Bridget (Kerris Dorsey) going to make it out of the family business? Is Pooch Hall (playing Ray’s brother Bunchy) going to go to prison for the rest of his life? Is Ray going to survive? Is Mickey going to pull another fast one?”
Fighting for a chance to answer those questions, Schreiber rallied Ray Donovan fans via his Instagram account, and showrunner David Hollander went public with his grievances. Negotiations ensued, and Showtime agreed to finance a two-hour Ray Donovan movie.
For Radulovic, the good news came with a complication: Since cast members believed the show was over, many actors took on new projects. Radulovic had to figure out how to wrangle the talent. “My wife says it’s a good thing I like puzzles, because that’s what this was like,” he says. “You’re trying to get all these kittens into a box. We shot the movie just
PRODUCED BY TRAINS THE SPOTLIGHT ON SOME OF THE GUILD’S NEWEST MEMBERS, AND OFFERS A GLIMPSE AT WHAT MAKES THEM TICK.
Ceja hails from Seattle, Washington, where she became obsessed with acting and musical theater. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London in the Foundation program, graduated from the Second City Improv/Writing Conservatory Program, and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Although her background has been mostly as a performer, she has line producing credits on the feature Blossom (2023) for BET and Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch (2023) for Tubi Movies.
WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOUR CALLING IN LIFE?
I was about 26 years old when I discovered producing. About five years ago I began training as a line producer, and the sky has been the limit ever since.
WHAT WOULD SURPRISE PEOPLE ABOUT THE PROFESSION?
That there are so many different types of producers in all aspects of the industry.
WHO OR WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO GO INTO PRODUCING?
Kathleen Kennedy was a huge inspiration, as well as my love for storytelling and the ideas I have that I would like to tell and produce as well.
WHAT’S ON YOUR PRODUCING BUCKET LIST?
To produce the six movies and two TV shows I have on my slate, and hopefully win an Oscar for one.
“A PERFECTLY EXECUTED COMEDY.”
“TV PERFECTION.”
inside of 30 days in New York, Boston, and a little in LA. You’ve got all these working actors doing all sorts of things, so it was interesting to squeeze the schedule to have Eddie (Marsan, playing brother Terry) coming in later, or to get Pooch Hall in there sooner.”
Ray Donovan the movie builds toward a death scene played to the hilt by Voight, but the final shot belongs to Schreiber’s title character. Severely wounded, Ray Donovan gets hauled away in an ambulance. Will he live or die?
“Through the years, this show has always respected the audience,” says Radulovic, “so we wanted to leave a little bit of a question there. It’s not about having a cliffhanger; it’s about letting you make your own choice about how things are going to go. I think a bit of ambiguity makes for good storytelling.”
Sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine had already followed Andy Samberg’s Jake character through 145 episodes of police precinct antics when NBC asked for one more season. “We saw that as a golden opportunity to really craft a final season,” says showrunner Dan Goor. “But then two things happened: the pandemic and the tragic murder of George Floyd.” With four episodes already written, Goor and company reworked the season from scratch. “We made some big changes, like having Amy (Melissa Fumero) and Holt (Andre Braugher)
work on a task force that would address police reform. This was an issue we really cared about, but we didn’t want to let it eclipse the life of a show our audience had come to know already. And from the start, we knew that we wanted the finale to be a heist.”
In the Brooklyn Nine-Nine universe, heists involve elaborate shenanigans in which the cops compete to trick each other and capture a prized item. “We started doing Halloween heists that kind of became a trademark of the show,” Goor says. “We wanted to make the finale as funny as it could be from start to finish, and we thought the heist would allow us to do that.”
Alongside pranks that included a Mission Impossible-style rubber mask fake-out, the characters needed to experience heartfelt interactions, says Goor. “For the finale, we wanted to make sure that every single character had a satisfying emotional moment with another member of the ensemble who was important to them.”
In producing Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s final season during COVID, Goor powered through numerous obstacles. “How do you make intimate scenes in COVID when you want your characters to kiss, hug, say goodbye? I think we wrote the finale without a kiss between Jake and Amy, but on the day, it just felt crazy that there was no kiss. I asked the actors if it was OK, but then one of our producers said, ‘Wait, wait, wait— we have to ask the COVID people.’ Everyone had been tested, so we did the kiss, and it was a powerful moment. But as a producer, you worry. You’re balancing the needs of the story, the needs of the actors, and the needs of the times.”
the 34th pga awards brimmed with goodwill and heartfelt emotion as nominees, presenters and special guests celebrated each other’s work.
Written by Steve Chagollan
There was a lot of love being shared at the 34th Annual PGA Awards. Tom Cruise, recipient of the honorary David O. Selznick Award for motion pictures, expressed his indebtedness to “a great number of industry legends,” many of them in the room, “who had the patience to hear thousands upon thousands of questions” as he was learning the trade. Mindy Kaling, who accepted the Norman Lear Achievement laurel for television, expressed her gratitude to several mentors, especially Greg Daniels, executive producer of The Office , who “let me write and edit and cover set when I had no idea what I was doing.” And Everything Everywhere All at Once producer Jonathan Wang, referring to his mixed white and Asian parentage, and how he rarely felt fully embraced by either group, said: “You guys shouldn’t have accepted me, you shouldn’t have welcomed me in, but I feel like family in this room with you producers.”
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
The Fabelmans
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
The Whale
Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Minions: The Rise of Gru
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Turning Red
Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama
The White Lotus
Andor
Better Call Saul
Ozark
Severance
Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy
The Bear
Abbott Elementary
Barry
Hacks
Only Murders in the Building
David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Series Television
The Dropout
Dahmer - Monster:
The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
Inventing Anna
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Pam & Tommy
CONTINUED
Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Fire Island
Hocus Pocus 2
Pinocchio
Prey
Award for Outstanding Producer of Nonfiction Television
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy 30 for 30
60 Minutes
George Carlin’s American Dream
Lucy and Desi
Award for Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketch, Standup & Talk Television
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Saturday Night Live
Award for Outstanding Producer of Game & Competition Television
Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls
The Amazing Race
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars
Top Chef
The Voice
Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures
Navalny
All That Breathes
Descendant
Fire of Love
Nothing Compares
Retrograde
The Territory
The Award for Outstanding Sports Program
Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off
Formula 1: Drive to Survive
Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Detroit Lions
Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers
McEnroe
The Award for Outstanding Children’s Program
Sesame Street
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock
Green Eggs and Ham
Snoopy Presents: It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown
Waffles + Mochi’s Restaurant
The Award for Outstanding Short-Form Program
Only Murders in the Building: One Killer Question
Better Call Saul: Filmmaker Training
Love, Death + Robots
Sesame Street’s #ComingTogether
Word of the Day Series
Tales of the Jedi
2023 PGA Innovation Award
Stay Alive, My Son (UME Studios)
Dance Monsters (Lime Pictures)
Experience Yosemite (CityLights)
Ghostbusters VR Academy (HOLOGATE)
LeMusk - A Cinematic Sensory Experience (Intel Corporation)
Lustration (New Canvas)
On The Morning You Wake (To the End of the World) (ASTREA)
OXYMORE by Jean-Michel
Jarre (VRROOM)
PerfectoVerse (Watch and Play)
Space Explorers: Atremis
Ascending (Felix and Paul Studios, with participation of MeetMo) (Meta Quest)
Stranger Things Immersive Watch Party (Sawhorse Productions)
Verizon Pepsi Halftime Ultra Pass (R/GA)
Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy: Milestone Award, awarded to an individual or team for their contributions to the entertainment industry.
Mindy Kaling: Norman Lear Achievement Award, recognizing a producer or producing team for an extraordinary body of work in television.
Tom Cruise: David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, which honors a producer or producing team for an extraordinary body of work in narrative features.
Till: Stanley Kramer Award, intended to honor productions, producers or others for their achievements in raising public awareness of social issues.
For a complete list of producers associated with the nominated productions, visit producersguild.org/ producers-guild-of-americaawards-celebrates-top-honors
outstanding limited series
“A REFRESHINGLY CANDID, SMART AND OFTEN HUMOROUS PORTRAYAL OF GRIEF, REGRET AND FORGIVENESS.”
Nominees for the Zanuck Award expound on challenges of COVID and maintaining heaLthy equilibrium for cast and crew.
Written by Steve Chagollan
There were plenty of insights and a sprinkling of surprises when producers behind the 10 nominees for the PGA’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Motion Picture gathered for a panel discussion on February 25 at LA’s Skirball Cultural Center.
For example, who knew that Elvis was the first live-action film produced by Gail Berman, the storied studio executive and recent two-term PGA president? Or that Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun: Maverick) was a first-time nominee?
The gathering, sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter and moderated by PGA Presidents Stephanie Allain and Donald De Line, stood as a reminder of both the eclectic nature of today’s feature film landscape and the resilience of the filmmakers, whose productions across the board were affected by the COVID outbreak and its lingering aftermath.
“The most difficult part of the film for me was the day we got the call that Tom Hanks (who played Colonel Tom Parker in Elvis) and Rita Wilson had the coronavirus, which is what it was being called at that moment,” recalled Berman about the film’s early stages of production in March 2020. “We didn’t know that much about the coronavirus at the time, or what their health was like, and then Warner Bros. said they were shutting the movie down.”
Filming resumed in August of that year, when Hanks received a clean bill of health, and wrapped the following spring. But other productions did not have the luxury of weathering such a lengthy hiatus, or sustaining an extended production period.
“Working with an ensemble cast, we really couldn’t shuffle their schedules a lot,” said Rian Johnson, producer-writer-director of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. “A lot of them had a hard out, so if we had someone go down and had a delay, we could have really been in trouble. But luckily we were able to keep everybody safe.”
Juggling the availability of an all-star cast is one thing, but when your movie hinges on the participation of one key player, it’s no less risky, COVID or not. “Cate (Blanchett) had a hard out,” said Todd Field, producer-writer-director of Tár. “She’s in every frame of the film. If she went down, that was it. There were no contingencies.”
The primacy of writing was not lost on the group. Two of the producers on hand, Field and Johnson, earned a solo screenplay credit on their nominated projects.
“The hardest thing for all of us up here, and for Avatar: The Way of the Water, was the script,” exclaimed Landau, who with Cameron won top honors from the PGA and the Academy for Titanic (1998). “I think we’re overshadowing that in our conversations about the production and all the things that we solved. We were faced with the challenge of doing a sequel that we wanted to be a stand-alone movie that stood on its own merits. That comes down to the script.”
The gap between Avatar (2009) and its follow-up was exceeded considerably by Top Gun: Maverick. Principal photography commenced 33 years after shooting started on the original, even though a sequel was announced in 2010. Part of the delay had to do with the death of Tony Scott, who directed the first Top Gun (1986). But when preproduction resumed in 2017, the gap in time figured into the story—a blueprint that Bruckheimer cited as one the project’s biggest hurdles.
“It’s always the hardest thing,” said Bruckheimer. “How do you get a
great script? How do you highlight Tom’s journey through this movie? It was (director) Joe Kosinsky who came up with an idea, and we flew to Paris where Tom was shooting Mission Impossible–Fallout (2018) and pitched the idea. That hooked Tom. We worked all the way through the process and even through editing to make it as good as it could be.”
Darren Aronofsky talked about the 10-year process of bringing The Whale to the screen, from the time he first saw the play by Samuel D. Hunter in 2012 at New York’s Playwrights Horizons. “The most obvious challenge of the piece was figuring out who should play Charlie,” he said. After considering many actors and non-actors, he “stumbled on a trailer for a really low-budget film with Brendan (Fraser) in it, in a foreign language, and thought, ‘Wow, we never thought of him.’ It was just a gut feeling that we had finally found Charlie, and it all worked out.”
When asked about their superpowers as a producer, the importance of establishing a tone of calm and assurance on set emerged as a common refrain.
“Part of our job is to believe in the movie more than anyone, and to be the most optimistic and the least flappable,” said Nate Moore (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). “Because movies are constantly very close to falling apart. I think a lot of times the crew looks to us for, ‘Is this OK? Is the movie still going to be good despite what’s currently happening?’ And you have to believe that it will, even if inside it’s, ‘Man, I don’t know how I’m going to figure that out.’”
Jonathan Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) likened his job to being “the vibes police on set,” or a “summer camp counselor.”
“We all got into this business to have fun,” he said. “I’m just trying to make sure I don’t bring any stress to the equation. Just try to make it really pleasant, like a fertile garden for creativity.”
Whatever the circumstances, cynicism cannot enter into the equation, asserted Berman, who calls that attitude “the killer of creativity.”
On The Fabelmans, a coming-of-age story inspired by Steven Spielberg’s formative years as an aspiring director, special care was taken to give the filmmaker the space to navigate what turned out to be a highly emotional shoot.
“We formed a very close-knit family on set, and we just allowed him space to think and feel safe and comfortable and vulnerable,” recalled Kristie Macosko Krieger. “He was having memories flooding back to him of his childhood while he was making the film. He told the cast before we started, ‘I’m done freaking out, I had all my therapy in writing the script with Tony Kushner. We’re good. I got this.’ Then on set he broke down quite a bit. Sometimes it was tears of joy and sometimes it was tears of sadness. Sometimes it was just him being able to have his parents back for a little bit of time.”
Through careful nurturing, Graham Broadbent (The Banshees of Inisherin) has enjoyed the producer’s vantage point of watching Martin McDonagh evolve from a playwright into a full-fledged feature director over the course of four films.
“When we made In Bruges (2008), McDonagh had made a short (Six Shooter, 2004), which he won an Oscar for, so he was a precocious talent, but he hadn’t made a full-length film,” recalled Broadbent. “On Banshees, we’d all had that additional COVID preparation time, but he had absolutely gone to the point where he storyboards every scene, he knew where the locations are going to be, he knew why he required inside-outside builds beside a bit of sea—because it was a very particular image he wanted and he knew how it was going to be shot.
“A lot of our jobs as producers is, ‘What’s the priority?’” Broadbent added. “If we have a real sense of what those priorities are, let’s make sure we’re always working towards those. I think the nice thing about (repeated collaborations) is to never be on set looking across the camera going, ‘How the fuck did we ever get into this situation?’ Because you always know what’s going on.”
One of the things that came out of
the pandemic, moderator Allain noted, was more sensitivity to the well-being, or mental health, of those within the production bubble, and having somebody on set who’s dedicated to that process. “A spiritual coordinator,” as she called it. Whether it was processing the grief over actor Chadwick Boseman’s recent death entering into production on Wakanda Forever, or simply creating “a welcome environment to share and process feelings,” as Moore put it, it was clear that there was no going back to business as usual.
“That sense of awareness,” explained Field, “of knowing who you’re working with, is everything. I think that you’ve known the productions you’ve worked on where that hasn’t been the case. No one is paying attention; people are objectified by their jobs. I think the danger in filmmaking often is we all get these ‘kick me’ signs attached to our backs, and we all get ghettoized as ‘you’re this, you’re that.’ And at the end of the day, yeah, there’s hierarchy, but we all have to lock arms together. We have to care about each other to get our work done as a practical matter, but also as human beings.”
Another thing everybody agreed on was that the collective experience of seeing a movie in theaters is still alive and kicking. Bruckheimer noted that Top Gun: Maverick was put “on the shelf for two years so audiences could enjoy it in theaters. We waited, and it worked out great for everybody.”
“I learned that the movie business is not dead,” added Landau when asked what knowledge he gained from producing Avatar: The Way of Water. “We as artists still have an opportunity to entertain people around the world and tell stories that have an impact on the world and the people who see them. I think that’s the power of films. I think we forget that. We think of it just as this entertainment. But we actually have the ability to educate. We have the ability to inspire people to look at our world differently, to treat people differently, and people will still come to the movies. We have to preserve that.”
Producers Elizabeth Avellán (Spy Kids) and Basil Iwanyk (John Wick) talk about the risks and rewards of building franchises from scratch.
Sequels offer built-in familiarity for consumers and the opportunity for filmmakers to widen their audiences by upping the ante with each successive entry.
The movies tapped from such properties as Marvel comics and the Harry Potter books have proved to be gold mines. But the two franchises for which producers Elizabeth Avellán and Basil Iwanyk are best known—the Spy Kids and John Wick movies, respectively—are not associated with previously established IPs, but created from scratch.
The first John Wick (2014) hailed from a simple premise: A notorious hitman (Keanu Reeves) comes out of retirement to track down the villains who killed his puppy and stole his car. The modestly budgeted film performed beyond expectations, reaping $86 million worldwide, cleaning up in ancillary, and spawning three sequels. The latest, John Wick: Chapter 4, was released in March and has generated almost $360 million worldwide.
Spy Kids, centered on two young siblings who follow their parents into the world of espionage, dates back to 2001 and became an instant hit for Miramax, with a worldwide take of $148 million. The first three films were made in quick succession, but the last two followed their predecessors by eight and 12 years. Spy Kids: Armageddon is due out in September from Netflix.
Avellán lives and works in Austin, Texas, where she and Robert Rodriguez cofounded Troublemaker Studios. Iwanyk, founder of Thunder Road Films—with offices in Santa Monica and Tribeca—resides in New Jersey. The two spoke to each other via Zoom about the challenges posed by sequels. The following is an edited version of their conversation.
AVELLÁN: The Spy Kids series was really the first time that we (Avellán and Robert Rodriguez) thought there might be a franchiseable situation.
Spy Kids was not envisioned as a series per se. Robert could feel it had a magic to it, something unique for kids. We kept running into people at festivals that had seen Desperado and would say things like, “Oh, my son loves your movie,” and then you find out the kid is 6 or 7. And I’m like, “Um, there’s ratings on these movies.” But Robert was thinking, “I need to create something that has that energy. Why does that 6-year-old like that?”
Robert participated in an anthology movie called Four Rooms (1995). His lead character (played by Antonio Banderas) was Spanish—this family of a little boy, a little girl, mom and dad. As he was filming that, he was like, “Who are these people? What do they do?”
Once he talked to (Dimension’s) Bob Weinstein about it, he told Bob, “We can’t mention the title Spy Kids.” So we began developing that later in the ’90s after we had done The Faculty (1998).
The first one was filmed in 1999. It was the “Untitled Robert Rodriguez Project” for a long time, even as we were shooting, to keep it under wraps. Because with (a title like) Spy Kids, you know what it is immediately.
IWANYK: On John Wick, I didn’t think in a million years that we were starting a franchise. It was a spec script written for a character in his late 70s. It called for a Harrison Ford or Clint Eastwood or Morgan Freeman. But we didn’t want to go that direction, so we gave it to Keanu, without directors. Of course, he’s like, “Why? I’m not this old.” But we developed it with him, got our directors, and we made the movie.
We didn’t know if this thing was a joke or if it was going to work because of the buy-in with the dog. When I
would pitch it, people would say, “That is just so goofy and ridiculous.” And unfortunately for us, Keanu had two films come out while we were shooting that underperformed. One was Man of Tai Chi (2013), which he directed, and the Universal movie he did about samurai (47 Ronin, 2013). All of a sudden our movie felt like a distressed asset.
We were completely independent. We didn’t have any studio, we didn’t have anybody to distribute the film except internationally (Lionsgate). We decided—because people didn’t get the premise, Keanu was kind of on a downswing, and our directors (Chad Stahelski, David Leitch) were stuntmen who had never directed anything—that there was nothing we could show distributors to convince them this movie could work unless we finished the entire movie.
Then when we screened it to every studio in town, everyone passed—the same movie that came out. Lionsgate— because they needed a minimum screen guarantee to hold their foreign distribution deals—said, “OK, we’ll take John Wick, but we’ll give you zero money upfront and give you a big outsize share at the back end.
It was like the miracle of the movie gods. We got a great trailer, and all of a sudden our film was defined as “actually pretty good.” It was directed by stuntmen, and it was Keanu, and it was an insane premise. The movie did OK, like $43 million dollars (domestic), and got really good reviews. We got out like a failed career suicide attempt. Keanu could work again. I didn’t lose a fortune, and the directors would be able to go on to other movies.
The big shocker was in the movie’s ancillary stuff. It was a different time, 10 years ago. It so greatly out-indexed what its domestic box office was that it was a very successful movie financially.
We always mused out loud that it would be fun to do another one, but no
one was asking. Lionsgate came to us and said, “If you guys have any ideas for another one, we’d be open.” We went into that second one truly not knowing if people felt: “OK, we liked the first one, you got away with it, don’t go back there again.” Or: “OK, we liked the first one, give us more.”
AVELLÁN: That’s an amazing story.
IWANYK: Yeah, it’s nuts. Even when I talk about it now, I get anxious. I couldn’t get my wife to go see early cuts. She was like, “Honey, it doesn’t sound good.” I’m like, “Oh God.”
AVELLÁN: It’s amazing. I love the series, by the way. I think Keanu is— with the dog especially—a fit foil for that whole setup.
IWANYK: That device was used once, so we went into the second movie going, “OK, we don’t have that device—is this going to work?” I have to hand it to Lionsgate for taking a shot with us.
AVELLÁN: To me it has to do with taking a chance on the stunt guys to direct this movie. It’s always about things like that for us, because here in Austin, we were able to build our own little studio that has some stages (Troublemaker Studios, formerly called Los Hooligans Productions). It used to be an old airport. We took over a piece of it. We’ve been able to give chances like that to people and nurture them. It seems like going out on a limb, but it’s creating something that gives a lot of encouragement to others who may have that dream.
IWANYK: Often the issue with handling first-time directors is who’s going to get cast. In this one, Keanu signed off on these guys. What Chad and Dave have done in their careers transcends any expectations I had
with them. But they had an incredible take and a great point of view. I’d much, much rather go with a first-time director with a scary pair of hands than a quasi journeyman with a safe pair of hands. The upside’s greater. As a producer, I think you’re at heart a gambler and an entrepreneur.
AVELLÁN: That’s interesting that you mentioned the entrepreneurial spirit, because it is true. Troublemaker Studios was born out of an entrepreneurial kind of mindset. You’re building from within your own structure of different actors you have already worked with, and you can bring them in for a small surprise cameo, (like) George Clooney as Devlin in Spy Kids. People still talk about that: “How do you get George Clooney?” Well, it comes from building relationships in other projects (Clooney starred in Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, 1996). To have that ability is a very big deal. I’m sure you have done the same in your films.
IWANYK: Well, not on a George Clooney level.
AVELLÁN: Well, George Clooney hadn’t done much (in movies) at that point (prior to From Dusk Till Dawn).
IWANYK: One of the things that annoys me the most is when people look at the casts of films I worked on that were really hard to get made, and in retrospect, look like no-brainers. Like The Town (2010). I’d go into customs coming in from London—we were shooting Clash of the Titans (2010) there—and they’re like, “What do you come in for?” I’m like, “The Town.” “Who’s in it?” “Ben Affleck.” They’d be like, “Eh!” I’d add, “Jon Hamm.” They’d be like, “Who?” “Blake Lively” “What?” “Jeremy Renner.” Now people say, “God, what an all-star cast!” But not at the time.
Same with Sicario (2015). Emily Blunt was the fifth or sixth person we went after. Now people look at that and are
like, “Oh my gosh!” We put Ian McShane in like seven movies. Jon Bernthal we’ve put into a bunch of movies. He’s another good-luck charm. Sam Worthington we’ve put in four movies.
I think a lot of it is we like them, we’ve had luck with them, let’s keep it going. Now I feel bad for actors on movies that we worked on that were, you know, catastrophes.
AVELLÁN: But we created careers, and like you said, they weren’t well known at the time. That’s the beautiful thing about films: (people) get discovered.
AVELLÁN: One of the things I want to talk about is technology. How has it helped John Wick throughout the years? Or not at all?
IWANYK: We were able to pull off some stunts and some action scenes that back in the day would have cost
us a fortune or killed the stuntman. A lot of it is just safety.
By the way, there are also times where we actually do throw people down 10 flights of steps, and that’s not technology. That’s a stuntman who’s insane falling down a flight of steps.
AVELLÁN: Who knows how to do that.
IWANYK: Not to sound like a schmuck producer, but I love technology that makes things cheaper and easier. Whether it’s the visual effects pipeline in post or new camera rigs, everything that makes things cheaper and easier, I will embrace. If the end result is cool and emotional and compelling, I don’t think anyone cares how we got there.
AVELLÁN: I agree, because I feel a movie can get lost in the visual effects. It becomes perfunctory versus emotional.
With Spy Kids, the first one was shot on film. That was 1999. Robert was already (leaning toward) the Sony 900s (digital cameras) and HD. We were able to transition. We shot Once Upon a Time in Mexico with those, and then a month later we shot Spy Kids 2
IWANYK: I’m working on a film (Relay) right now with director David MacKenzie, and he has a really interesting way of working. He doesn’t have any monitors on set—like zero. But once a week he screens the cut dailies to the whole crew, to anyone
who wants to see the week’s work. To be in the room with the DP and production designer and costume designer and David and commenting on it is like, I’m under the hood.
I think it hurts the process when everybody watches dailies on their phone or their iPad or laptop. It’s individualized. You’re not in that room anymore. To me, that was such a big part of the filmmaking experience that’s now pretty much gone.
AVELLÁN: Miramax did not say, “Yeah, we’re going to go into a second one” until that first 10 days at the box office. It did extremely well, opening in March, and blossomed from there. It was the first Latino kids’ movie that was given a McDonald’s (product placement) deal.
When McDonald’s showed up to tell us what they might do, we already had designed the toys.
On the third one (Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, 2003), Robert wanted to get Ricardo Montalban, because Ricardo was the Wrath of Khan guy. It was in Robert’s brain to get grandparents in it. Besides its being a fun movie and in 3D.
IWANYK: Spy Kids and John Wick have something in common: They’re not based on any underlying IP. But there’s a perception that they are. As if Spy Kids was based on a series of children’s books, or Wick on a series of graphic novels. But we make it up as we go
along. There’s great freedom in that, because you’re building the plane while it’s in the air. It’s based on the brains of the people who did it, and we have no idea where we’re going.
AVELLÁN: [LAUGHING} That’s right. By the way, how did you come up with doing John Wick 4 ? Was it always planned?
IWANYK: At the end of 2 and 3, Keanu was like, “I’m done, I’m never doing this again, I’m beat up, I’m getting old.” Then we all think to ourselves, “Did we go a bridge too far? We’re tired.” The Wick movies are soul-crushing to me. Then we see a cut and it’s too long, and then it’s still a pain in the ass. And we fight, fight, fight. It was like 3 hours and 20 minutes.
Then we get to a place where it’s good enough to show somebody. We show it to an audience and we see their reaction and we’re all happy again. It reminds us why we do it.
Putting aside the obvious commercial and financial incentives, we all want to be relevant. We’ve been making John Wick movies for 10 years. We started from shit, and we’ve been through good and bad times. We put ourselves on the line for it, so it is a family. A dysfunctional family, but we’re all rooting for each other.
AVELLÁN: I know.
IWANYK: And we miss each other once too much time goes by. We miss
“WE PROBABLY TALK ABOUT TONE MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE FRANCHISE, BECAUSE TONE TO ME INFORMS EVERY DECISION YOU MAKE, WHETHER IT’S CASTING, WARDROBE, ACTION, EVERYTHING.”
—BASIL IWANYK
getting to make those movies. As hard as they are, we’re playing with house money, and we all know it. So there’s an emotional component of, “Let’s get the band back together.” But we’re not there yet for 5 [LAUGHING]…
AVELLÁN: Well, you know, it’s interesting because Bob Weinstein asked us to do a fourth one, and it was great. The fifth one was really interesting. The pandemic happens, right? We had never really thought about making a fifth one. The neat thing is that through the years, our children have gone from being little guys to being older and being around the set more.
I have two sons (Marcel and Racer Max) who were in their early 20s when the pandemic began. They spent a lot of time working together and writing and doing things on their own. Robert wrote Spy Kids: Armageddon with my son Racer Max, who’s now 26. He’s also a producer on the project.
But the beautiful thing for me in Spy Kids 5 was being able to produce it with one of our sons, and the writing happened with him doing it with his siblings. Robert gave them the ideas, and they figured out the script.
IWANYK: On John Wick 1 we had a ton of deferments. Keanu deferred much of his fee. On the second one, it was more about the line payments. Ultimately, we were like, “OK, we need to get out of New York. Let’s go to Rome.” Between the above-the-line payments and the Rome sequence, that was really the increase. Everything else was pretty much the same. It’s a big difference when you’re working on a purely independently financed movie and a Lionsgate movie in terms of crew rates. But in terms of size and scope, it wasn’t that big.
(Between) John Wick 2 to 3 is where it really took the big step up. There are things that are not under our control,
like people getting raises. HODs love to work on franchises because that’s where they get a raise themselves. Stuff that the audience wouldn’t even notice increases the cost of these films. And we wanted to expand the world a bit. That’s really what a lot of our expenditure was. It’s a little bit more of the world.
The trap you fall into oftentimes is, I think, twofold. One, on the action, where it becomes impersonal and frankly too visual effects-driven. The second mistake people make is all of a sudden your cast seems unwieldy. In other words, you bring names in for the sake of bringing names in. It almost imbalances the cast. It’s hard to explain, but you see it because it gets more expensive and studios are like, “Oh God, well, we’ve got to put Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman as the bad guys.” And you’re like, “What?”
Spy Kids and John Wick were hits, but they weren’t The Avengers. It wasn’t a movie where it was so gigantic that you’re like, “OK, we can do whatever we want.” Even though you guys were at the Weinstein company and we were at Lionsgate, it still came from an independent spirit.
AVELLÁN: By the way, I also love the recurring characters in the John Wick series. That was kind of awesome to put Laurence Fishburne in there.
I also thought it was brilliant that you brought in Halle Berry (on John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum). She was so bad-ass in the movie. Yeah, the actors get more expensive. Even the kids get more expensive, but you still kind of maintain the same budget for the below-the-line stuff. Maybe more visual effects when we’re doing 3D, but the budgets are similar, like you were saying, in their scope.
IWANYK: It’s funny you say that because that was a tortured conversation. “Who are the characters that maybe don’t justify their own film,
but are so beloved in the context of this franchise that by not having them, it upsets the audience?” We’ve had a lot of debate about not bringing certain people back that we really liked in the films.
Did you … of the five movies, is there any actor that survived through all five?
AVELLÁN: Obviously Danny Trejo has been a recurring person in our movies. Much like in yours, you have those people who are good-luck charms. He has been I think in four of them. Mike Judge was in the first three.
Alan Cumming I think is in three of them as Floop.
But I have liked bringing other actors from other movies that had nothing to do with Spy Kids along the way. Salma Hayak played Mike Judge’s wife, Cesca Giggles (in Spy Kids 3: Game Over). Salma was willing to come down even though she was in the middle of Frida doing all the publicity and Academy Awards press.
IWANYK: We probably talk about tone more than anything else in the franchise, because tone to me informs every decision you make, whether it’s casting, wardrobe, action, everything.
It was always important for us that the audience would know we were in on the joke. We knew what we were showing you was crazy, fun, absurd. We knew reality was being thrown out the window, but it still felt like it was grounded. Then on the flip side, let’s also make sure we don’t become a parody of ourselves.
We look back to the Bond franchise. Like, don’t want to turn into Moonraker, but at the same time don’t be so dour where people go “God, this is really violent.” Let them know that they’re in for a ride.
AVELLÁN: I love those kinds of action films. But I also think that in yours specifically, there’s something about Keanu that’s very childlike, and at the
same time a worn-down child. He knows this is just another mountain. The mountain will lead to another mountain and at the same time, he walks through it and survives. He gives the tone its center.
In Spy Kids, Robert is very into unique—he was a cartoonist before filmmaking. He did a cartoon for the paper at the University of Texas, and he was always drawing. So there’s a certain amount of a child inside Robert Rodriguez that’s deep and fun because he always had little siblings, and then we had little kids. You see things through the eye of a child. It’s just so much fun to see their innocence and the things they say and how they express themselves and how they take an idea.
The Floop world came from that childlike sensibility, and having Alan Cumming made Robert go out and make it something that a kid would dream about. That Floop castle was like a dream. Robert is always tinkering with things.
But the tone for me is always about family and what you accomplish as a group together. Helping each other using your best talents.
IWANYK: Yeah, I think that’s an interesting point because we obviously couldn’t use the device of the dog on 2, 3 and 4. If you look at the movies, it’s always people yearning for family or the anxiety of a family. You have Donny Yen who cut his eyes out to save his daughter. You have Halle Berry who’s banished herself to Morocco to not go near her daughter because it would bring her daughter danger. John Wick is yearning for his old life and his wife.
That’s something that we really, really focus on—those human elements of loss and yearning and people being damned. And as they’re damned, they realize, “Oh my god, I’m bringing my damnation to everybody around me.” It’s fathers and daughters, fathers and sons. That’ll always be an element of the John Wick movies. The humanity of it.
AVELLÁN: A lot of times we’ll do back-to-back because you have the crew and just keep working. And the postproduction’s happening on a parallel plane. But we were doing other things. Because of the pandemic and Robert having done We Can Be Heroes (2020), which did extremely well for Netflix. That’s why they (Netflix) are involved in the release of Spy Kids 5 – Armageddon
Things have changed quite a bit in how much you can work the kids on a set. The rules have gotten very different, and then the pandemic, with COVID restrictions, added to the amount of time we could do certain things. It was an interesting new structure that I had to produce under.
IWANYK: But also, I think years and dates are not the same for nonproducers. I’m working on movies that are going to come out in Q1 of 2025. On a personal level, that feels like a universe away. But on a producer level, that means you’re getting the movie financed and getting it ready in the summer, you’re prepping it in the fall, you’re shooting it all next year, and then you have post. By the time it comes out, it’s March or April of 2025. That’s like right around the corner, even though it’s a year and a half from now.
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A New York City-based producer with over a decade of experience in digital storytelling, content creation and video production, Easy is the founder of KultureHub.com, an organization dedicated to providing underrepresented communities with resources and opportunities they need to succeed in their respective industries.
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Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, not only helped pave the way for greater cinematic representation of gay and Asian characters for U.S. audiences, but it helped save the company that coproduced it, Good Machine.
Lee and the New York-based company founded by Ted Hope and James Schamus took intertwining paths to success. The two parties had been circling each other in 1990, and ended up working together on Lee’s feature debut, Pushing Hands (1991), among Good Machine’s initial projects.
However, it was The Wedding Banquet—about a gay, mixed Asian/American couple who stage a mock wedding for the benefit of visiting parents from Taiwan, and the centerpiece of Lee’s “Father Knows Best” trilogy—that broke Lee’s career stateside. But the screenplay, which Lee wrote with Neil Peng, veered toward melodrama, recalls Schamus.
“Inside the script was a great idea,” he adds, “great characters, great setup, and even a structure that if you turned it into a romantic comedy, it really worked.”
Lee not only warmed to the idea, but when Schamus started “pounding away at the screenplay,” as he puts it, “a lot of Ang’s notes were very simple. Things like, ‘make it funnier.’”
For the titular scene, which was filmed at the Sheraton’s ballroom near La Guardia airport, local Asian-American nonactors gladly pitched in as extras.
“There was such community spirit and a rooting interest in Ang Lee’s work after Pushing Hands that all of Queens
came out,” says Schamus.
The film was accepted for competition by the Berlin International Film Festival, even though it had been rejected by every sales agent who had seen it. Before Hope and Schamus boarded the plane, they informed their staff they’d have to sell the film themselves; otherwise they’d need to vacate their New York office. “We really didn’t have money for rent,” says Schamus.
The film’s screening at Berlin’s Zoo Palast proved a revelation. “Within about three or four minutes, the audience reactions became almost riotous,” remembers Schamus. “And at the end of the screening, it was almost pandemonium. For the next four days, Ted and I sold every single territory in the world. We became an international sales company as a result of nobody else wanting the movie.”
The Wedding Banquet, which cost $700,000 to make, ended up being the most profitable film of 1993, with a worldwide gross of $23.6 million, according to Variety
At the time, Schamus had already played a key role in the burgeoning New Queer Cinema movement, having served as executive producer on Todd Haynes’ Poison (1991). Since the movement was fueled by anger and political frustration over the AIDS crisis, Schamus was concerned The Wedding Banquet might be perceived as “not reading the room.”
“It was not written and produced by gay people, and it was also not adhering to, at that point, the critical norm of the New Queer Cinema,” he says. “It was very much an old-fashioned Hollywood screwball comedy.”
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