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Time Magazine
6 days ago
- Business
- Time Magazine
How Ryan Reynolds Rewrote the Script for Celebrity Entrepreneurs
Pari Dukovic for TIME Ryan Reynolds is trying to focus on our conversation. But all he can think about is the script pulled up on his laptop. The screenwriting software Final Draft has frozen so he can't plug in his latest ideas for a project that he has asked me not to share. He reluctantly abandons his computer but can't help but fidget. Reynolds knows he'll only have a few hours later to return to the story before he's on dad duty. 'I'm obsessive,' he says. 'Even right now I'm thinking what I have after you, and if I can get back to it again.' His schedule after our interview is packed: a business meeting; someone is coming to fix Final Draft; then a walk-and-talk with Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy to discuss Levy's upcoming Star Wars movie starring the other Ryan—Gosling. We're sitting in the Tribeca home Reynolds shares with his wife, actor and entrepreneur Blake Lively, and their four children. The living area is lit by lamps with fringed shades, and the walls are covered in moody paintings that evoke Madonna and Child. Even the TV sits in a museum-worthy frame. Behind him, a bottle of Aviation Gin, one of many now-lucrative companies Reynolds invested in, sits prominently on a kitchen counter. While most people know him as the sardonic superhero Deadpool, Reynolds is also a wildly successful businessperson. Plenty of celebrities attach themselves to products. But Reynolds' production company and marketing firm Maximum Effort is a viral content machine. He takes hefty stakes in seemingly disparate small companies, promotes them—and has them promote each other—with playful quick-turn ads he calls 'fastvertising,' and then sells the businesses for millions. He has invested in Aviation Gin, the discount telecommunications company Mint Mobile, Welsh soccer team Wrexham AFC, and the cybersecurity app 1Password—to name a few. The companies he co-owns or has sold are valued at over $14 billion, according to Forbes . Reynolds has carried over his Hollywood playbook to the world of advertising: respect the audience's intelligence and have a little fun. 'Consumers know they're being marketed to, so acknowledge it,' he says. Levy, who has made three movies with Reynolds, believes that Reynolds' ability to create narratives for his businesses is his friend's superpower. 'He's really identified a core component to entrepreneurial success,' Levy says. 'And it connects back to our day jobs, which is storytelling.' He built this empire on his specific and identifiable brand: Reynolds is the popular guy, blessed with Canadian affability and a cynical sense of humor. He frequently collaborates with celebrities like Hugh Jackman and Channing Tatum with whom he seems to have developed genuine friendships. He and his famous wife flirt online. His social media is perfectly calibrated: he's either writing self-consciously sophomoric posts on social media about shots of monkey penises in a nature docuseries he's producing or pranking Wrexham AFC co-owner and fellow actor Rob McElhenney. He knows when to deploy snark and when to be earnest. And after years as a movie star, he's built a public profile that's less heartthrob and more everydad: He sports glasses gifted to him by David Beckham and loves to crack jokes about how, now that he's pushing 50, he won't always be able to squeeze into the skin-tight Deadpool suit. Reynolds does admit to a deep-rooted need to be liked—probably related to being the youngest of four brothers vying for validation from a withholding cop father. 'I am people-pleasing by default, as is my wife, as are our first two children,' he says.'The third was, you know, born flipping the bird. And the fourth is TBD.' Reynolds knows the trait is a double-edged sword: 'Your boundaries can kind of melt and that's not necessarily healthy.' When Reynolds drops his kids off at school, he likes to remind them, 'Disappoint one person today!'' Reynolds admits he struggles to follow his own advice. But at least he's figured out a way to channel this perceived weakness into a strength: He knows how to charm A-listers, CEOs, and—crucially—the consumer. In another life, Reynolds would have been the chief marketing officer of a Fortune 500 company. He just happened to become one of the world's biggest movie stars instead. Photograph by Pari Dukovic for TIME Buy a copy of the TIME100 Companies issue here Reynolds spent 45 minutes at college before he dropped out and drove to Los Angeles with dreams of joining the famed improv group The Groundlings, only to be told he'd need to pay for classes. Undeterred, Reynolds eventually found a steady gig on the sitcom Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place and established a reputation for playing smart alecs that carried over into comedies like Van Wilder and The Proposal . 'I didn't get famous until I was older,' Reynolds says. (For reference, he was named Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine at 34.) 'Thank God. I would be dead if it happened in my early 20s.' His transition to superhero, a rite of passage for leading men in Hollywood in the '00s, was rocky. He snagged supporting roles in Blade: Trinity and X-Men Origins: Wolverine . In the latter, he played Deadpool—a fourth-wall-breaking wiseacre that perfectly aligned with Reynolds' sense of humor—only for the writers to make the bizarre decision to sew the character's mouth shut. It took more than 10 years for Reynolds to push his version of the Merc With a Mouth onto the big screen—and only after test footage for a Deadpool solo film mysteriously leaked online and went viral, forcing the studio's hand. Fox granted Deadpool a relatively small budget. That was fine by Reynolds. After starring in the 2011 box office bomb Green Lantern he learned that bloat is the enemy of creativity. 'I saw a lot of money being spent on special effects, all sorts of stuff. And I remember suggesting, 'Why don't we write a scene the way people would talk? I don't know, it could be a fun exchange of dialogue that doesn't cost anything?'' The flop also taught him to take control of his own destiny. 'When it failed, it's not the director's name out there. It's my name,' he says. 'I want to be the architect of my own demise or the author of my own success.' Reynolds put his money where his (no-longer-sewn-shut) mouth was. He paid to fly the writers to the Deadpool set because he needed to work with them in person to finesse the movie's comedic tone. With a modest budget, Reynolds drove crowds to the 2016 movie with surprising strategies like advertising on Tinder. Last year, the third entry in the franchise, Deadpool & Wolverine , became the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever, grossing $1.3 billion dollars and saving the flagging Marvel Studios from a grim year at the 2024 box office. Despite Deadpool's massive cultural footprint, Green Lantern remains his toddler son's favorite film. Ryan Reynolds greets fans during the Deadpool & Wolverine World Premiere on July 22, 2024 in New York City. Noam Galai—Disney/Getty Images Maximum Effort, co-founded in 2018 with former Fox head of digital theatrical marketing George Dewey and named for a line in Deadpool , was forged from the bootstrap promotion of the first film. 'Maximum Effort' also serves as Reynolds' life motto. 'I can't say I've invested every cell of my body into something that failed,' he admits. 'The things that I've failed at, I usually didn't fully believe in.' That same year, Reynolds invested in Aviation Gin. Rather than just lending his face to the brand, Reynolds pitched a cheeky marketing strategy that riffed on his own persona—he filmed a Father's Day commercial in which he invented a cocktail called 'the vasectomy.' Maximum Effort's 50-some employees frequently collaborate with MNTN, the advertising platform for which Reynolds serves as chief creative officer. Mark Douglas, MNTN's CEO, recently had lunch with Reynolds and ambassadors from a brand. 'They were describing themselves and what they do, and right at the table he created a commercial in front of them,' Douglas says. 'He just imagined how he would tell this story in 30 seconds on television.' The year after Reynolds' investment, Aviation increased its volumes by 100%. The U.K.-based Diageo bought the liquor company for $610 million in 2020. Next, Reynolds bought 25% of Mint Mobile, a discount telecom company with little brand recognition. Mint Mobile raised revenue by nearly 50,000% from 2017 to 2020, according to TechCrunch, thanks in no small part to Reynolds' omnipresent ads. Mint sold to T-Mobile for $1.35 billion in 2023. Many actors care as much or more about building their brand as honing their craft. When I tell Reynolds that some skeptics object to the practice of pursuing commercial gain to the possible detriment of artistic achievement, he squints in surprise. 'You think that there are young actors who are like, 'I want to get famous so I can own a brand that sells lots of stuff?'' he asks. I do. 'I'm not saying I'm the exception to the rule, but I love marketing,' he says. 'It's diet storytelling. You can look at a commercial through the same prism you would look at a movie. I get a lot of creative fulfillment out of that. You cannot be as precious about it, because it's just a f-cking commercial. But as long as you acknowledge to the consumer they're being marketed to, then there's an authenticity to it.' That earnestness helps Reynolds stand out in a crowd of celebrity spokespeople. 'When people say, 'What's he really like?' I say exactly what you think,' says McElhenney. 'There's no higher compliment you can give someone in our business than they're exactly who they say they are because so many people create a public persona that is not congruent with who they really are. With Ryan, you don't feel like you're being sold a bill of goods.' __________________________________________ When Reynolds is stopped on the street, he doesn't just take selfies with fans. He asks who the most important person in their life is, and records a video for that person. He can't seem to help himself. Over the course of several weeks, I watch him walk into room after room and pitch jokes, marketing concepts, and movie ideas to anyone and everyone. He exchanges horror stories with a photographer about tantrums at school drop-off and compares notes with me about the techniques we learned in our respective toddler CPR classes. That approachability can create problems in his real life, like when he visits his kids' school and their classmates start asking him about Deadpool. 'I see my daughter's lips tighten,' he admits. 'I don't want to be closed off to the other kids. So I don't really know how to play it.' But it benefits his bottom line. When an ill-advised Peloton ad that featured a husband monitoring his wife's fitness journey went viral in 2019, Reynolds called up the actress and convinced her to appear in one for Aviation Gin. The commercial's star, Monica Ruiz, took a good deal of convincing. But Reynolds can talk anyone into just about anything. Or just about: After the photoshoot to accompany this story, Reynolds repeatedly pitched TIME's editors on a cover featuring the back of his head instead of his face. Ryan Reynolds behind-the-scenes at his TIME cover shoot in April in New York City. 'Oftentimes I create, perhaps too much, an accessibility,' he says. 'I don't like a filtration system. A game of telephone is a terrible way to communicate. They need to hear your voice. They need to feel your emotional investment. They need to feel your gratitude if they've done something great.' That instinct to build connections has served him well in turbulent moments. If you've glanced at social media in the last year, you probably know that Lively filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint against Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director of the film It Ends With Us in December 2024: According to a New York Times report, Baldoni hired a crisis PR manager who had previously represented clients like Johnny Depp. Baldoni then sued Lively, Reynolds, their publicist, and the Times for defamation and conspiracy to damage his career with what he said is a false accusation . A judge recently threw out Baldoni's countersuit, and is allowing Lively's suits to proceed. But the situation has taken on a life of its own in the tabloids and on TikTok. Even my celebrity-agnostic relatives asked about it when I mentioned I was interviewing Reynolds. The couple is declining to speak about it. Still, I ask Reynolds whether the tabloids and online discourse have impacted his bottom line. He is, after all, the face of all these companies. That visibility has perks—like being able to deploy Deadpool in commercials—but surely some CEOs get nervous about gossip. 'I can read something that says, 'He should be drawn and quartered. I could read something that says I should win a Nobel Prize. Both are meaningless,' Reynolds says. 'None of us are comprised of our best moments. None of us are defined by our worst moments. We are something in the middle.' A week later, when I push him on whether headlines can affect his brand and business relationships, he's more pointed. 'Accessibility and accountability are a big part of how I do things,' he says. 'The people that I work with know me, so there's never a question of anything like that. If you operate with some degree of core values and integrity, they're going to help you up. If you're an asshole, they're not. And that's pretty simple.' Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds attend 2025 TIME 100 Gala at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 24, 2025 in New York. Paul Bruinooge—Just then, Lively pops into the room wearing leggings and an oversized shirt. She wants to check in with Reynolds about coordinating their schedules for 10 minutes of catch-up time. As they compare their calendars, Lively offers me her favorite snack, sour dried blueberries that she says taste like Warheads and begins to rummage through their drawers trying to locate them. Reynolds leaps up to help her. 'You're chewing into your time,' Lively jokingly scolds her husband. But Reynolds seems rather zen about any tumultuous turns in his public life. He attributes this perspective to an incident early in his life when he got into a brawl with a friend. 'I skipped rehab in my 20s and decided to go to conflict-resolution workshops in Santa Fe,' he says. 'Conflict resolution changed my life in a way that I can't quantify. You don't have to agree with the person. You can empathize, you can validate. You can do all those things and get closer to them without having to just blindly agree or win or lose.' __________________________________________ Reynolds has been on a hot streak lately. MNTN went public in May with a valuation of $1.2 billion. In April, Wrexham AFC made history as the first team to ever achieve three consecutive promotions up the ranks of a brutal British pyramid system. McElhenney pitched Reynolds on sponsoring a soccer team in 2020 during the pandemic. But when Reynolds heard McElhenney's larger vision for a docuseries about a downtrodden town whose fortunes were inextricably tied to the long-suffering club, he immediately knew the story had mass appeal. He suggested they buy the team together. 'Ryan's involvement took this from a very small endeavor to a very large endeavor overnight because he has the ability to connect with millions and millions of people,' says McEllhenney. 'And I don't just mean on social media. I mean spiritually.' McElhenney and Reynolds had never actually met in person, just texted about collaborating some day. 'I made sure to call around and talk to people he worked with, and you heard the same words over and over again. How optimistic he is, how driven and ambitious he is, but not at the cost of his own values. When things get dark, as they often do for everyone, he is a beacon of light I know I can count on. I think other people feel that.' Wrexham's revenue last year reached £26.7 million, a 155% increase on the year prior. Welcome to Wrexham , a show Maximum Effort produces chronicling the team's rise, has won eight Emmys in four seasons. While the project's mission was noble—to boost a struggling mining town—it also served as a Maximum Effort flex: It could make American consumers, historically agnostic toward soccer, care about a down-and-out Welsh football club. Wrexham players now feature in Super Bowl commercials for SToK Cold Brew with Tatum and make cameos in Deadpool movies. Betty Buzz, Lively's beverage company, became a sponsor for both the men's and women's teams, as did Aviation Gin. Wrexham co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney celebrate after Wrexham scores on April 26, 2025 in Wrexham. The team won against Charlton Athletic 3-0, earning a promotion to the Championship league. Martin Rickett—Reynolds claims he still knows very little about soccer, let alone the ins and outs of an IPO. 'I was a lousy student,' he admits. 'I was in remedial 10th grade math when I was in the twelfth grade. It was humiliating.' But it also taught him humility. 'We don't pretend to be football experts. The average four-year-old in Wrexham knows more about football than we ever will. But we can invest in players, invest in character over talent—that's more valuable than a poisonous person in a locker room who scores a lot of goals. And we can tell their story.' They hope to repeat the formula: McElhenney and Reynolds have now teamed up with Eva Longoria to invest in a Mexican soccer team that will become the basis for another series. They went in on an F1 team with Michael B. Jordan, and Reynolds just bought a sailing team with Hugh Jackman. Meanwhile, Wrexham is just one season away from competing at soccer's highest level. 'Thinking back to that first press conference there and saying, our objective is to make it to the Premier League. And you know, everybody tittering and laughing a little, and that's okay. I'm not judging them for that. But then now it's starting to look very, very real,' Reynolds says. 'I am feeling elation but also panic. Growing is great but growing too fast is a frightening proposition.' But Maximum Effort must grow. Next up, the company is producing a documentary about Reynolds' fellow Canadian comedian John Candy that will open the Toronto Film Festival. Reynolds isn't abandoning his acting career anytime soon. During our talk at the TIME100 Summit he teased that he 'thinks' Deadpool will show up in Marvel films again, though he believes that the character works better as a supporting player than a leading man: 'I'm writing a little something right now that is an ensemble.' At 48, his entrepreneurship is, perhaps, a buffer for the inevitable decline in fame. 'All those years living in LA, they will always take your name down from the marquee. That's going to happen like death and taxes,' he says. 'It's not a great feeling. That's why inevitably we are in New York because there's more than one industry here.' And when Reynolds' name is no longer in lights, he has, as McElhenney puts it, alcohol-baron money to fall back on. Reynolds insists his value isn't tied to any single venture. 'It comes from having four kids and a good marriage,' he says. Besides, he's too busy to worry about it. He's got a script to work on and a family meeting to squeeze in before his jaunt around Manhattan with one of Hollywood's most in-demand directors. 'My self-worth isn't farmed out to any one thing that isn't under the roof of my home.'
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Netflix 2025 Arrivals: Here's the list of upcoming series and films
Netflix continues to expand its global lineup in 2025 with many new and returning titles from various genres and countries. Viewers can expect to see familiar characters return and fresh stories debut. #Pahalgam Terrorist Attack Code of war: India and Pakistan take their battle to the (web)front Forex reserves show a pauperised Pakistan, a prospering India Pakistan conducts training launch of surface-to surface ballistic missile Netflix 2025 Arrivals June Aniela Ginny & Georgia (Season 3) – June 5 5 5 Next Stay Playback speed 1x Normal Back 0.25x 0.5x 1x Normal 1.5x 2x 5 5 / Skip Ads by by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Understand Why Some Households Hire Help for Room-to-Room Moves Furniture | Search Ads Read More Undo Tires (Season 2) – June 5 K.O. (2025) – June 6 Straw (2025) – June 6 FUBAR (Season 2) – June 12 Live Events Long Story Short – June 12 The Waterfront (Season 1) – June 19 Olympo (Season 1) – June 20 Squid Game (Season 3) – June 27 July Glass Heart The Summer Hikaru Died – July 1 The Old Guard 2 (2025) – July 2 The Sandman (Season 2 – Volume 1) – July 3 7 Bears (Season 1) – July 10 Brick – July 10 Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano – July 11 My Melody & Kuromi (Season 1) – July 24 Happy Gilmore 2 – July 25 The Sandman (Season 2 – Volume 2) – July 24 August Katrina: Come Hell and High Water The Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea's Tragedies – August 5 Final Draft (Season 1) – August 5 Wednesday (Season 2 – Part 1) – August 6 The Thursday Murder Club – August 8 Fixed (2025) – August 13 She the People (Season 1 – Part 2) – August 14 Old Dog, New Tricks (Season 1) – August 22 Soul Mate (Season 1) – August 28 Also Read: The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2: When will new season premiere? Here's release date, where to watch, cast, trailer and what to expect September Alice in Borderland (Season 3) Pokémon Concierge (Season 2) Crime Scene Zero – September 2 Wednesday (Season 2 – Part 3) – September 3 Billionaire's Bunker (Season 1) – September 19 October Genie, Make a Wish (Season 1) – October 3 Nobody Wants This (Season 2) – October 23 Physical: Asia (Season 1) – October 28 November Last Samurai Standing – November 15 Frankenstein December 10Dance FAQs What are the most anticipated Netflix shows coming in mid-2025? Ginny & Georgia, Squid Game, The Sandman, Wednesday and The Old Guard 2 are some of the most anticipated releases between June and December 2025. Are there any anime or Japanese shows on the list? Yes, several Japanese titles including The Summer Hikaru Died, Glass Heart, Final Draft, Soul Mate and 10Dance are scheduled.
Hindustan Times
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
From $200k debt to being set for life: How Ryan Coogler's 'genius' deal for Sinners may change Hollywood
Ryan Coogler's new film, Sinners, has taken the box office by storm. The R-rated horror film has minted over $100 million worldwide in just over a week and is still going strong. The film has firmly solidified Coogler's position as one of Hollywood's foremost new-age black filmmakers. But more than the box office receipts, what has earned Hollywood's attention is Coogler's unusual deal for the film with the studio, which has set him up for life. (Also read: Is Sinners based on a true story? How the movie is dominating the box office) Starring Michael B Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, and Miles Caton, Sinners is a horror film that blends racial segregation in Jim Crow America with elements of vampire lore. The film, made on a modest budget of $90 million, has grossed $121 million worldwide in eight days. Its most significant achievement is sustaining itself via word of mouth. The film earned $48 million in its first weekend and is now set to mint $42 million in the second, an unheard-of 12% drop. This figure can be in excess of 40-50% for most major studio films. But Sinners is soldiering on, and looks set to become one of the highest-grossing horror films by the time it ends its run. Warner Bros has produced and distributed Sinners, but the studio agreed to an unusual request from Coogler. The rights for the film - its full ownership - will revert from the studio to Coogler after 25 years (in 2050). The director told Business Insider that he fought for the film's rights as his family history inspires the story. There is some element of truth to the track about two black siblings opening a juke joint in the South in the 30s. This meant that not only did Coogler have full creative control of the film, but he also stands to benefit from the film's royalties and legacy earnings 25 years from now. The move has been called genius by many trade pundits. This also marks an incredible turnaround for Coogler, who was grappling with debt just a decade ago. On a recent episode of WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Coogler recounted his life before the release of his debut film, Creed, in 2015. 'Back then, bro, I wasn't making no money. I was $200,000 in debt for film school. It was bad,' he said, adding, 'I was trying to write [movies] in Microsoft Word. It's impossible because your format gotta be right. I was broke, playing football on the little scholarship money. And my wife scraped together some cheese and bought me Final Draft, which is the software that you write your movies on.' Till now, filmmakers would only earn a portion of their films' earnings as the studios own the rights. Even creators of extremely successful franchises like George Lucas, James Cameron, and Steven Spielberg do not have full ownership over their IPs. But Coogler has managed that. This opens the doors for more Hollywood filmmakers negotiating similar deals, and potentially setting themselves up for life.
Business Insider
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Ryan Coogler's production company Proximity Media is thriving — and 'Sinners' is just the beginning
There was a time when the only person who believed in Ryan Coogler was his wife, Zinzi. Back in the early 2000s, when Coogler was playing football at Saint Mary's College of California, he began thinking about life beyond the gridiron and whether becoming a storyteller could possibly be his next passion. He was told that if he were serious, the first thing he had to do was get the software that all scribes in the business use to write their stories: Final Draft. But barely surviving off the scholarship money he had, he couldn't afford it. "She bought it for me," Coogler told Business Insider over a video chat while sitting next to Zinzi, who gave a shy smile in response. Five movies and two Oscar nominations later, it turned out to be money well spent, as Coogler has become one of Hollywood's top visionary filmmakers. But he's not stopping there. Alongside Zinzi Coogler and producer Sev Ohanian, the trio launched the production company Proximity Media in 2018, which handles everything from feature films to documentaries and podcasts. Their efforts helped bring the 2021 best picture Oscar nominee "Judas and the Black Messiah" to the screen. They also teamed with LeBron James for the remake of "Space Jam" in 2021 and launched the popular podcast "In Proximity." The three formed a close bond in the 2010s when Ohanian was Ryan's classmate at USC (Zinzi and Ryan, who have known each other since they were teens, married in 2016). There was even a time when Ohanian was sleeping on the Cooglers' couch while they were making Coogler's debut feature, "Fruitvale Station," in 2013. Five years later, the three went into business for themselves, forming Proximity. "We were young people trying to make it in this business before we started the company," Coogler said. "We are a company that was built on that feeling of not being taken seriously because of our age and constantly being told we're doing it wrong because we want to do right by people. That has been the common theme; it's a blue-collar aspect." That blue-collar approach has become the company's guiding light. While many production companies led by Hollywood heavyweights are locked into first-look deals at a studio, Proximity has taken the less-traveled path and is a free agent in the business. This has led to them being busy all over town, working with Marvel Studios on the upcoming "Black Panther" spin-off series "Ironheart" and landing Coogler's latest directing effort, "Sinners," at Warner Bros. following a heated bidding war. "When we know we're doing something right, it's often when we can approach things unconventionally and not necessarily industry standard," Ohanian said. But Proximity isn't focused on just the moving image. Under the leadership of Oscar-winning composer and longtime Coogler collaborator Ludwig Göransson, the company was behind the soundtracks for " Creed III" and "Judas and the Black Messiah," the latter of which earned an Oscar nomination for best original song. The company will also be releasing the "Sinners" soundtrack. Meanwhile, Paola Mardo is heading its audio division, Proximity Audio, focused on continuing to grow the Webby Award-winning "In Proximity" podcast. "We have had Jordan Peele and Michael B. Jordan sit across from Ryan, but the pie in the sky is to keep having those intimate and in depth conversations about how we do what we do, to just give perspective on the many different things it takes to put something on screen for audiences to enjoy," Zinzi Coogler said. With a staff of around 25, the founders describe Proximity as a scrappy working environment fueled by the underdog mentality from which the company was born. They often hire people who, like them, once had little to no industry experience, just a drive to work in the business. This has led to Proximity's much-sought-after paid internship program. "At any given time, there are brilliant young filmmakers and podcast makers that are in and out of our company getting college credit and getting paid to learn," Ryan Coogler said. "It has gotten to the point that some of these people have gone on to be assistants to major Hollywood players." " Sinners" shows off the fruits of Proximity's labor. The genre-bending thriller, written and directed by Coogler and produced by the Cooglers and Ohanian, had the biggest opening weekend for an original movie since the pandemic, making $48 million domestically. In addition to handling the soundtrack, Proximity also used its podcast "In Proximity" to give a deeper insight into the movie and its themes, with its latest episode featuring a conversation between Coogler and Göransson. "Our first goal was to make a film that would be very music-oriented if not a full-blown musical, and I think with 'Sinners' we've accomplished that," Ohanian said. While "Sinners" is poised to continue its success at the box office, there's plenty more in the pipeline at Proximity. An adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel "California Bear" and an adaptation of the graphic novel series "A Vicious Circle" are both in development. They're also in production on an as-yet-unannounced docuseries following the success of "Stephen Curry: Underrated," which was released by Apple TV+ in 2023. I ask Zinzi if she ever imagined that buying Ryan Final Draft would lead to all this. "Not at all," she said softly. "I mean, we grew up with parents who had very practical jobs. I had zero expectations. I just knew it was something that he was very interested in and curious about."
BBC News
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Tom Cruise nearly played a squirrel in film made by Welsh teenagers
Have you ever dreamed of writing and making your own movie that's shown in the cinema ? Now, thanks to a new project called Supporting Shorts, it's hoped that will become a reality for lots of young project is all about helping young people who have additional learning needs create their own short films. It's designed for people who might find the usual movie-making rules a group of teenagers from a school in north Wales are the first to see a short film they made, called Race to the Start Line, make it all the way to movie screens. Shown before the feature-length animation Dog Man, Race to the Start Line is a comedy about a boy rushing to get to a mountain bike race. The group even contacted Hollywood actor Tom Cruise for a small guest role as the voice of a stop-motion squirrel, also called Tom. In the end it was a scheduling issue that meant Tom couldn't clear his diary to join the cast of the film."Yeah, we had a bit of him back and forth, but it was. No," said Nancy, one of the actors in the film. "It was very close," adds Nancy's co-star Gareth. "He was probably busy jumping off a building or something." Steve Swindon worked with the young people on their film, he's from an organisation called TAPE that tries to make it easier for people to get involved in explained that throughout the process, it was important to take "people's ideas seriously, whatever they might be." "The Tom cruise thing, was a genuine idea. And we very nearly got him as well."It was a scheduling change that stopped it from happening in the end."But, if we hadn't asked we wouldn't be here - the confidence in the room with the young people when their question to Tom Cruise was heard and taken seriously and they got a response, the next day, changed people's self belief." When it came to writing their film, the students at the school were first to use a new version of computer software called Final Draft, which is used by filmmakers in Hollywood. Specially adapted to make storytelling easier - it's now hoped more young people will have the opportunity to make movies, screened before feature-films in cinemas around the who directed Race to the Start says there hasn't always been opportunities for disabled people like him in the movie industry, but says that through the project, "we're trying to change that". He told Newsround that the process has made him feel more confident and that filmmaking is the job he would like when he's older. As this group is the first to have a film shown in cinemas, he adds that "the pressure's on" for it to be successful. Meanwhile Nancy, one of the film's stars is taking her new found fame in her stride. Asked how she feels about being on the big screen and watched by hundreds of people, she says she's waiting "for the line [of people] to queue up to ask for my autograph."
