The Business

For director Shaunak Sen documentary filmmaking is like a “fever dream,” in that when he starts he “sort of jumps off a cliff.” The same goes for his latest documentary “All That Breathes,” as he didn’t know where the film “would land.” “Everything that has happened with the film was utterly and entirely outside of my orbit of predictive reasoning as well.” In this interview, Sen discusses the creation of “All That Breathes,” the rescue work of black kites in New Delhi, the challenges of filming it, and the recognition it has received. But first, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni look at the possible exit of Kevin Costner from “Yellowstone.” Where does the franchise go without him? 

Irish actor Brendan Gleeson has received his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for playing Colm Doherty in the black tragicomedy “The Banshees of Inisherin.” “It's a thrill… I'm not in the springtime of my career,” he notes. In this in-depth conversation, the 35-year TV and film veteran discusses his early acting career, two of his four sons becoming actors, fame from the “Harry Potter” movies, and his award-nominated role in The Banshees of Inisherin.” First, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni look into Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise’s rekindled friendship. Is it genuine or a marketing stunt? Plus, a new book about the Redstone family empire.

Michelle Yeoh is the first Asian woman to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance in the sci-fi action-fantasy “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” an unexpected feat for the veteran. In this extended conversation, she talks about the film and its success, and delves back into her life-long career spanning from her aspirations to becoming a ballerina as a child, to the evolution of acceptance for Asian-represented movies. First, Disney CEO Bob Iger has announced he is open to selling Hulu, just a day after the company’s Q1 earnings call. 

Jerry Bruckheimer has credits on some of the most successful TV shows and movies of the last five decades. One thing he’s learned is that this business is unpredictable, so much that even he couldn’t have guessed that “Top Gun: Maverick” would be a breakout hit.

Writer-director Sarah Polley had a successful career as a child actor. By eight, she had appeared in several TV series and films and was cast to play Sally Salt in the notorious “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” Terry Gilliam’s adventure fantasy film. While Polley’s family was thrilled about it, she recalls an out-of-control production, with “unsafe and scary situations” on set. 

Before “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” saw a limited theatrical release last November, Producer Ram Bergman wasn’t sure if audiences would be back in theaters. Bergman is grateful that Netflix decided to premiere it on 600-odd screens for a week, and hopes the experiment moves the needle.  

With “Avatar: The Way of Water” charting a course for a $1.9 billion international gross, co-writer, producer and director James Cameron can now continue working on the following three sequels of the franchise, a project he compares to having kids. “Once you've done that, you're kind of stuck,” he jokes. 

Filmmaker James Cameron started pre-production of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2014. Though sequels two and three to the 2009 “Avatar” had been greenlit by then 20th Century Fox head Jim Gianopulos, Cameron knew change was coming. In early 2019, The Walt Disney Company acquired the studio and with it, Cameron’s latest project. “We sort of were led to believe that the ‘Avatar’ overall [intellectual property] was one of the jewels in the crown of what Disney was acquiring, so we expected them to be leaning forward and wanting to see what we were all about,” says Cameron. “They were excited by the potential of the new films, especially as it was planned out to be a series of films, a saga over time played out in four movies.” In the first installment of a two-part conversation with Cameron, the filmmaker shares what changes affected the production of the movie, and why what he calls an “arranged marriage” with Disney turned out better than expected. He also discusses the importance of theaters and repeat views

The Business revisits its most popular episode of 2022: part two of a conversation with multi-hyphenate Bradley Cooper. To get a shot at directing his remake of “A Star is Born,” Cooper passed on an upfront payday in exchange for a piece of the profit. And that gamble paid off. But as Cooper is painfully aware, the movie business has changed. “Those days are completely gone,” Cooper says. “So, there is trepidation I have with that, no question. And I have thought: I really have to actively start thinking about other ways of making revenue that have maybe nothing to do with movie making.” In part two of this interview with Cooper, he shares his worries about the streaming future. He also remembers picking up filmmaking tips on the set of “Alias.” And he shares how he created the memorable voice of Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon.

It’s time for The Business’ annual year-in-review Megabanter. Kim Masters, Matt Belloni, founding partner of Puck News, and Lucas Shaw, entertainment reporter at Bloomberg, discuss the biggest Hollywood stories of 2022. 

Ruben Östlund’s latest film “Triangle of Sadness,” a satirical dark comedy that takes  place in a luxury yacht, has gained considerable recognition since it came out, including a Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the spring. Now, Östlund delves into his directing, shooting during the pandemic, funding, and the aftermath of the film’s success, while Filipina actress Dolly De Leon discusses her career and how being in the film has changed her life. But first, the “Avatar” sequel premieres worldwide, including a coveted theatrical release in China. Can it gross more than $2 billion to succeed? Plus, Warner Bros. Discovery pulls the plug on “Minx” season 2. Matt Belloni and Kim Masters analyze.

Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino stays busy with his projects, which lately have stacked up on top of each other throughout their production cycles. After recovering from a broken foot, he’s flown to Brazil, Argentina, the United States, and around Europe in a months-long global press tour to promote two most recent films that he produced and directed.  

When actor, writer, and producer Kumail Nanjiani was 18, he moved from Karachi, Pakistan - a city of more than 9 million people - to the United States to attend Grinnell College, a small, private liberal arts college in Iowa in 1997. The town of Grinnell’s population was about 9,000 then. Though he had visited New York as a teenager, and “sort of knew America the way it is in movies,” he was not prepared for the cultural shock. 

After writing and starring in the film “The Big Sick” in 2017, actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani says writer-director and producer Robert Siegel (“Pam and Tommy,” “Big Fan,” “The Wrestler”) approached him with an idea to make a drama film about the American stripper troupe Chippandales. At the time, Nanjiani turned it down.

For Peter Kujawski, chairman of Focus Features, it was “very simple and easy” to greenlight James Gray’s drama “Armageddon Time.” Gray had written the script before the pandemic shut down of March 2020. By that Summer, Kujawski got a call from Roeg Sutherland, a talent agent from CAA, saying he had something that he should look at. Sutherland knew Kujawski was a “gigantic fan” of Gray’s work and he was in a position to say yes to the project. “I was predisposed because of my fanship,” Kujawski reveals. “The movie literally could have been about young James Gray just building a model rocket, and I would have wanted to do it.” Gray, who also produced and directed the film, says he didn’t know of Kujawski’s admiration. “This is fabulous to hear!” Now Gray and Kujawski discuss “Armageddon Time,” the challenges of making the film during the pandemic, their careers, and Gray’s bad experience working with former film producer Harvey Weinstein. But first, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni talk about another producer, Eric

Actor, comedian, writer, and producer Larry Wilmore has been in show biz for four decades. He has written for dozens of iconic TV shows, including “In Living Color,” “The Office,” and “Black-ish.” But early in his career, he says a Black comedian who didn’t fit a stereotype didn’t have a job. 

This week, The Business revisits a conversation with filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who is now being tapped to direct an upcoming “Star Wars” movie, along with Damon Lindelof, who will develop and co-write it. Obaid-Chinoy will be the first woman and person of color at the helm of this movie franchise. Recently, the two-time Academy Award winner directed two episodes of Disney’s limited series “Ms. Marvel.” She shares with Kim Masters her path from making intimate documentary shorts in her home country of Pakistan, to animated features, to “Ms. Marvel” – her first live-action, narrative fiction series. “I know what ‘Black Panther’ did for communities across the world. And this is exactly what ‘Ms. Marvel’ is going to do for South Asian communities,” says Obaid-Chinoy. The mini series portrays a teenage, Pakistani-American superhero, and within its first week on Disney+, it received a 97% score – the best reviewed Marvel series and film production on Rotten Tomatoes, a record previously held by “Black Panthe

Documentary filmmaker Margaret Brown was born and raised in Mobile, Ala., and has had an absorbing interest in the American South, including her 2004 documentary “Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt.” But only while filming “The Order of Myths,” in 2008, she learned of the last known slave ship brought to the United States in the late 1850s, and the nearby community former slaves formed. “I didn't remember learning about that in school. That was the first time I had heard of the Clotilda [ship] or Africatown,” she states. That was the moment when she came across the topic of her newest project, the film “Descendant.” Now, Brown shares how she created partnerships to make the film, and got Questlove, Netflix and the Obamas to become involved in it. But first, Kim Masters banters with Matt Belloni about Warner Bros. Discovery’s unpredictable decision to hire filmmaker James Gunn and producer Peter Safran to run the DC Universe. 

It’s been five years since The New York Times and Ronan Farrow, contributing writer for The New Yorker, broke Havey Weinstein’s story of criminal conduct. “There was a lot of frustration in the national conversation about gender and sexual violence, and then, Harvey's place in Hollywood changed, and maybe in some subtle ways Hollywood started to change,” he says. 

After AMC acquired the rights to Anne Rice’s major literary works in 2020, the network tasked producer Mark Johnson (“Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”) to oversee its ambitious new project of making shows out of the author’s 18 supernatural novels. First is “Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” on AMC+, telling the love story of two vampires, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) in early 20th century New Orleans. For the more sensual scenes, an intimacy coordinator was hired. “They make all of us feel just what they're supposed to do, get more comfortable,” Johnson says, “then it's up to wonderful actors who make it all seem ad lib, spontaneous.” For Anderson, who played Grey Worm on the HBO series “Game of Thrones,” having an intimacy director to guide his character’s more sizzling sequences has been an important asset. “[Johnson and I] were talking about demystifying the idea of storytelling as being just purely magic and in the moment and all about feeling, but