THB #93: The Batman (no spoilers)
| March 6, 2022
The Power of the Dog Producer Tanya Seghatchian: “We have a symbiotic energy which has come from me having watched her work all my adult life and being profoundly influenced by it. She has a way of seeing which is, I think, unlike any other. From the days of Sweetie and An Angel at My Table, the first iteration in her way of filmmaking was remarkable. Her voice was so uncommon and original, and I absorbed that and realized that was a way of seeing. Then, from The Piano through to Bright Star, I think she was able to encompass and access so much of the romantic imagination and big emotions I had previously only found voiced through literature. We both love literature, and when we became friends, we talked a lot about books. In addition to a shared literary passion, we also share the desire to be creatively playful together, which is really important to her—that the process is about intimately sharing every step of the way, being able to weather the vicissitudes of filmmaking together, whether they are the good bits or the terrifying bits. And I think you can only have that confidence together if you see the world the same way.”
-30-
May 1, 2022
"Netflix, the great disrupter whose algorithms and direct-to-consumer platform have forced powerful media incumbents to rethink their economic models, now seems to need a big strategy change itself. It got me thinking about the simple idea that my film and TV production company Blumhouse is built on: If you give artists a lot of creative freedom and a little money upfront but a big stake in the movie’s or TV show’s commercial success, more often than not the result will be both commercial (the filmmakers are incentivized to make films that will resonate with audiences) and artistically interesting (creative freedom!). This approach has yielded movies as varied as Get Out (made for $4.5 million, with worldwide box office receipts of more than $250 million), Whiplash (made for $3.3 million, winner of three Academy Awards), The Invisible Man (made for $7 million, earned more than $140 million) and Paranormal Activity (made for $15,000, grossed more than $190 million).From the beginning, the most important strategy I used to persuade artists to work with me was to make radically transparent deals: We usually paid the artists (“participants” in Hollywood lingo) the absolute minimum allowable by union contracts upfront, with the promise of healthy bonuses based on actual box office results—instead of the opaque 'percentage points' that artists are usually offered. Anyone can see box office results immediately, so creators don’t quarrel with the payouts. In fact, when it comes time for an artist to collect a bonus based on box office receipts, I email a video clip of myself dropping the check off at FedEx to the recipient."
Jason Blum Sees Room For "Scrappier" Netflix
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DP/30 Audio: Bombshell, Jay Roach
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DP/30 Audio: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors
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DP/30 Audio: The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
| December 4, 2019
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