11:39AM PDT 9/30/16 by Diana Lodderhose and Mike Fleming Jr.

DEADLINE EXCLUSIVE: Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon are set to star in the Nicolai Fuglsig-directed Horse Soldiers, the tense true story of a U.S. Special Forces team and their untested captain sent to a rugged, mountainous region of Afghanistan in the weeks after 9/11. They were assigned to join forces with a Northern Alliance warlord to fight against overwhelming odds to drive out the Taliban. The film is being co-financed by Black Label Media, whose Molly Smith, Trent Luckinbill and Thad Luckinbill are producing with Jerry Bruckheimer and his Jerry Bruckheimer Films banner, where Chad Oman will be executive producer. The project is an adaptation of Doug Stanton’s book, which Peter Craig and Ted Tally adapted.

This becomes another step up for Black Label, which came out of Toronto with tremendous buzz for the Damien Chazelle-directed La La Land with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.

“I am so happy that we’re finally getting this great project off the ground with wonderful leading actors, Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon,” said Bruckheimer, who developed the drama for the last seven years. “It’s also great to be partnered with Molly Smith, Trent Luckinbill and Thad Luckinbill of Black Label Media, which is such a dynamic and exciting production company.”

BLM’s Trent Luckinbill called Horse Soldiers “exactly the kind of compelling dramatic story that Black Label is committed to telling – an incredible account of real life bravery and heroism in the face of insurmountable odds. We couldn’t be more proud to partner with Jerry Bruckheimer in bringing this incredible story to life.”

Beyond La La Land, which Lionsgate releases December, Black Label recently wrapped writer/director Danny Strong’s Rebel In The Rye, which stars Nicholas Hoult and Kevin Spacey. Among the projects they are percolating are the Sicario sequel Soldado, with Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, the Joseph Kosinski-directed Granite Mountain with Jennifer Connelly, Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Taylor Kitsch, James Badge Dale and Jeff Bridges, and the Ian Samuels-directed Sierra Burgess Is A Loser. They also signed a first look, two-year deal with ABC Signature and ABC Studios. Next up for Bruckheimer is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which will be released May 26, 2017.

Hemsworth, currently in production on Thor: Ragnarok and then Avengers: Infinity, is repped by CAA, ROAR and Gang Tyre; Shannon, who’ll be squarely in the Oscar mix in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance in the Tom Ford-directed Nocturnal Animals, is currently shooting The Shape Of Water and just signed on to The Current War. He’s repped by CAA, Wetzel Entertainment and attorney David Krintzman.

DEADLINE

1:45 AM PDT 8/31/2016 by Todd McCarthy

Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to ‘Whiplash’ is an L.A.-set musical starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a couple of Hollywood strivers who fall in love.

If you’re going to fall hard for Damien Chazelle’s daring and beautiful La La Land, it will probably be at first sight. There’s never been anything quite like the opening sequence: Traffic is at a standstill on the high, curving ramp that connects the 105 freeway to the 110 leading to downtown Los Angeles. Most of the cars are occupied only by single drivers, who are all listening to different music. But after a moment, instead of just sitting there simmering, somebody gets out and starts singing and dancing. Soon someone else does the same. Then another, and yet another, until a bad mood has been replaced by a joyous one as the road becomes the scene for a giant musical production number set to an exuberant big-band beat.

Aside from wondering how the filmmakers managed the logistics of pulling off such an audacious location shoot, lovers of classic musicals will be swept away by this utterly unexpected and original third feature from Damien Chazelle (opening this year’s Venice Film Festival). From a commercial point of view, the looming question for this Summit/Lionsgate release, set for December openings, is whether younger audiences will buy into the traditional conceits that Chazelle has revitalized, as well as into the jazz and lyrical song-and-dance numbers that fill the soundtrack.

Only foreign-film connoisseurs of a certain age will realize that the writer-director’s true inspiration here stems not as much from vintage Hollywood musicals (although allusions to them abound) as from the late French director Jacques Demy’s two landmark 1960s musicals with Michel Legrand, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort — especially the latter, which was far more dance- and jazz-oriented. Although serious romantic longing and love’s poignant transience underpin the narratives for both Demy and Chazelle, both films share a breezy lightness of tone that keeps their narratives skipping along.

And while Chazelle’s breakthrough success two years ago with Whiplash also possessed a central, if eccentric, musical component, La La Land bears a much closer kinship with his mini-budgeted 2010 Harvard undergraduate feature Guy and Madeleine on a Park Bench, which was a sung-and-danced-through musical.
As did so many American musicals made before the mid-1960s, this one pivots on a simple boy-meets-girl/they fall in love/complications ensue scenario. For this to work at all, you need to have attractive and sympathetic leading actors, and once you see Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone go into their moves here, it’s as pleasurable to accept them in such roles as it once might have been to embrace, say, Gene Kelly and Shirley MacLaine.

Their “meet cute” takes place on the freeway. Actress Mia (Stone) works in a cute cafe on the Warner Bros. lot (they should open it for real) and has been on a grinding run of fruitless auditions; she’s “someone just waiting to be found,” as she puts it in a plaintive song. A skilled pianist, Sebastian (Gosling) is fed up with providing tinkling background music at bars and restaurants (J.K. Simmons fires him from one gig); he’s a jazz freak, loves Miles Davis and swing bands, hangs at The Lighthouse down at the beach and is convinced that he’s “a phoenix rising from he ashes.” In other words, these two are like thousands of others in Hollywood, treading water but hoping to make it in spite of the odds.

Played out across the four seasons (albeit in different years), their romance begins bumpily. Seb, as he comes to be called, is downright rude to Mia at a springtime pool party, even though she could not look more splendid, quite like a brilliant sunflower, in a perfect yellow dress. Later, when he can no longer kid himself about his feelings for her, an enchanting musical sequence has them strolling and singing in the Hollywood Hills from one streetlamp to another backdropped by a glorious vista.

In just one of countless aesthetic decisions that have gone into making the film the sophisticated confection that it is, many of the musical numbers have been shot at magic hour, which both softens and intensifies the colors, as well as the beauty and romanticism of the mostly real-world Los Angeles settings. The city has rarely looked this gorgeous in films, a credit to the director’s romantic imagination as well as to the technical expertise of Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren (American Hustle), who has superbly composed the movie’s constant movement in the ultra-widescreen 2.52 x 1 aspect ratio.

Once they are a couple, things become, in a word, complicated. Realizing the long odds against Mia’s breaking through as an actress, Seb urges her to write something of her own to perform, which she buckles down to do. Paradoxically, he goes commercial, joining a successful band fronted by Keith (John Legend) that is constantly on tour, dictating long separations. A lengthy postscript, set five years later, features a fantasy dance sequence (a frequent motif of old musicals). But while aiming for poignance, the film loses some of its edge in this final stretch and arguably overstays its welcome by perhaps 10 minutes; bringing the pic in at under two hours would have been advisable.

All the same, for Chazelle to be able to pull this off the way he has is something close to remarkable. The director’s feel for a classic but, for all intents and purposes, discarded genre format is instinctive and intense; he really knows how to stage and frame dance and lyrical movement, to transition smoothly from conventional to musical scenes, to turn naturalistic settings into alluring fantasy backdrops for set pieces and to breathe new life into what many would consider cobwebbed cliches.

The helmer shares his leading man’s preference for bygone styles, and it remains to be seen whether or not the charm and persuasiveness of the film’s look and performances are enough to disarm skeptical young audiences who have rarely, if ever, been exposed to the conventions Chazelle employs so enthusiastically and skillfully.

Happily, the two leads are completely in sync with his objectives. Sebastian has a certain gruff impatience and short temper born of creative frustration, but the concern and love he feels for Mia doesn’t take long to well up. Gosling may not be a trained dancer or musician, but his moves are appealingly his own and months of piano practice have given him convincing style on the keyboards.

Stone is simply a joy as the eternally aspiring actress it’s hard to believe is being passed over. Emotionally alive and able to shift gears on a dime, Stone is all the more convincing in this context as she has the kind of looks that would have been appealing in any era, particularly the 1930s and 1950s.

Many of the old Hollywood neighborhoods and establishments so selectively used here are meant to summon up meaningful movie memories: a date to see a revival screening of Rebel Without a Cause at the (defunct) Rialto Theater in Pasadena immediately segues into a visit to the planetarium at the Griffith Observatory, and one extended sequence makes the Warner Bros. backlot look busier than it probably ever has been since the 1930s.

All of Chazelle’s key collaborators were clearly in total sync with the project’s aims. Composer Justin Hurwitz, who worked on both the director’s previous films, has delivered an LP’s worth of buoyant, charming tunes, mostly in a jazzy vein, with Benj Pasek and Justin Paul supplying the lyrics. Production designer David Wasco and costume designer Mary Zophres adroitly supplied touches of the old and new in an elegant way, while choreographer Mandy Moore similarly danced a stylistic tightrope that greatly helped Chazelle achieve his aim of delivering a welcome gift of vintage goods in a dazzling new package.

Source: HOLLYWOODREPORTER

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are falling in crazy, stupid love all over again in the first trailer for “La La Land.”

In the film, from director Damien Chazelle, Stone plays Mia, an aspiring actress who serves coffee while she waits for her big break. Gosling is a jazz musician who scrapes by playing in dark and dingy bars. They try to make their relationship work while facing the pressures of making it big in Hollywood.

Gosling whistles, then sings in the film’s first trailer:

“City of stars, are you shining just for me? City of stars, there’s so much I can’t see,” he sings. “Is this the start of something wonderful, or one more dream that I cannot make true?”

The trailer does not contain any dialogue, but shows snapshots of Stone and Gosling dancing, walking, taking auditions and looking longingly into each other’s eyes. The montage ends, as any good one does, with a kiss.

In addition to its co-stars, the film’s cast also includes J. K. Simmons, Finn Wittrock, Callie Hernandez, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Meagen Fay.

The original song that Gosling performs in the trailer, “City of Stars,” is available on iTunes.

“La La Land” is set to open the Venice Film Festival on Aug. 31, and hit theaters Dec. 2.

Source: VARIETY

“Art people are the good rich people”… That’s something my brother said to me whenever we bemoaned the state of things. In a world where The Donald is poised to manage this country like a giant hotel/casino development opportunity, it’s not hard to toy with the idea of giving up all worldly possessions and getting your kicks by endlessly raking sand.

But there is hope, oh human race, and Black Label Media is its beacon.

Molly Smith and twins Trent and Thad Luckinbill came together as Black Label Media in 2013 and instantly asserted themselves in Hollywood as aficionados of artistically ambitious, storytelling-driven cinema.

Smith got her start on set as a PA for Alcon Entertainment, Thad as cold hearted ladies-man J.T. Hellstrom on long-running soap opera The Young and the Restless and Trent in the Justice Department, of all places. Today they have a small staff of seven, a stable of billionaire investors (including Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and Smith’s father Fred, the founder, chairman, president and CEO of FedEx) and close relationships with fellow producers and companies.

The elements were put in motion toward the end of 2009, when Trent moved west from Washington D.C. Thad had brought Smith their first projects, which the two developed at Alcon, where Smith still worked as a production executive. Initially the plan was to set up a specialty division under an established umbrella, but due in part to Alcon’s fixed yearly outputs, the trio decided they could forge a clearer path on their own. So they raised a film fund and Black Label Media was born.

Black Label’s relationship with Alcon remains strong, but with their own staff, backers and vision, the company is able to push forward the kind of filmmaker-driven films too often ignored by the big studios. The two companies partnered in 2014 to make The Good Lie, a true story of a young Sudanese refugee coming to America, starring Reese Witherspoon and written by Emmy nominee Margaret Nagle.

The relationships with Alcon and companies like it are crucial to Black Label’s success. Since Black Label doesn’t distribute, getting their films into theaters and homes always requires collaboration. Right now they’re partnered with Lionsgate on La La Land, a musical comedy-drama starring Hollywood dreamboats Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, and written and directed by Whiplash wunderkind Damien Chazelle. All it took was seeing some footage from Chazelle’s homage to classic silver screen fare for the three to jump on board. It’s that kind of bold choice that defines the Black Label Media brand.

In their ability to supervise a given production, Smith and the Luckinbills consider themselves interchangeable. But in their strategic planning, all three voices are indispensible. All Black Label Media decisions are joint; there is no one creative mind, nor is there one financial whiz. The three work together on everything. They’re able to achieve this unlikely mind-meld thanks to their singular goal, which is always front and center:to produce the types of films that have a hard time getting traction at the bigger studios. So when a unique story-telling opportunity comes along like La La Land or the 2015 documentary Breaking a Monster,about teenaged speed-metal band Unlocking the Truth, Black Label is primed and ready to help them over the towering Hollywood Hills and into a theater near you.

On the surface, Black Label’s filmography may appear to have little in the way of common ground. The producers are only too happy to ricochet between fiction and non-fiction, between tear-jerkers and toe-tappers and edge-of-your-seat thrillers like Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-nominated (and $81 million grossing) masterpiece Sicario. But all their work shares one important characteristic—they belong to the family of films without representation at Comic-Con but with loftier ambitions than can be captured on an iPhone. They’re the films that would otherwise languish in mid-tier limbo: too small for wide release, too big for Vimeo.

Black Label acquires films in addition to developing them. It’s not important where the film comes from or how it ends up on their doorstep. What matters is the content and the artistry. They find films that they’re passionate about and go after them. Black Label’s first acquisition was John Carney’s Begin Again,the romantic drama starring Keira Knightley and Adam Levine, that they found at Sundance in 2013. Next they got their hands (all six of them) on‘71 and helped tell the story of a British soldier (played by Jack O’Connell) abandoned by his unit in Belfast, written by Gregory Burke and directed by Yann Demange.

The types of movies they buy are the ones they feel they would have made, though in the past two years, they’ve been making more. Black Label only produces three or four films a year. Being creative producers in addition to financiers requires Smith and the Luckinbill twins to live with their projects 24/7. So although we may not be able to look forward to an entire multiplex full of Black Label’s progeny, we can be sure that each one we come across will be powerful, relevant and just plain old entertaining works of art.

So with all these projects coming in, with different needs and at different stages, how does the team turn them from ink on paper to flickers on the screen?

It begins with a fundamental orientation: they take an honest look at the needs of the story with the goal of making important art on the same level as making money. The team’s creative and financial goals live in the same space. “It’s not about a number,” Smith insists. “It’s about looking at the whole thing and asking where does it live?”

These producers have real love and respect for the needs of the narrative. When putting a film together they first look at what they call “the economics of the story.” Black Label is here to make art, but they never forget that they’re also running a business. Consequently, they look for films with commercial potential, but commercial potential overlooked by the big studios.

Sicario, they explain, could have taken any number of shapes. It could have been a Michael Bay-style explosion romp starring a bunch of jacked 20-somethings. Or it could have been a quietly sociological study of Mexican-American relations with a documentary feel. The truth, as they say, proved to be somewhere in the middle. Smith and the Luckinbills fought for the truth that they saw in Taylor Sheridan’s script and Villenueve’s vision. The result was an Oscar-worthy prestige piece that delivers both edge-of-your-seat entertainment and a poignant, unflinching study of humanity on both sides of the border.

Inside producers, writers, directors and actors burns a need to create something worthwhile. Though the worthwhile stories aren’t always the obvious choices from a marketing point of view, these bold stories are what the essential artists in this industry want to be a part of. Sicario attracted Roger Deakins, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Emily Blunt and Daniel Kaluuya, not because they knew it would be nominated for an Oscar or Producers Guild Award, but because it fulfilled their need to be a part of a story that matters.

Talented artists who want to make powerful and relevant cinema are often ready to sacrifice the colossal bucks for creative fulfillment. Meanwhile, the ability to finance and produce independently means that nimble, director-driven Black Label is able to make projects like Sicario for less money than the machinery of a large studio would require. With a completed film handed over to a partner for widespread distribution, Smith and the Luckinbills can have their cake and eat it too.

The most recent of Black Label Media’s works of art to hit the cinema was Jean-Marc Vallee’s Demolition,about an investment banker who loses his wife, goes off the rails and pulls himself back together, starring our current master of the passionate understatement, Jake Gyllenhaal. There’s plenty more coming out of Black Label’s gourmet movie oven.A Sicario sequel, also written by Sheridan with the same cast of heavy hitters, is currently in development. We can also look forward to Jerry Bruckheimer’s Horse Soldiers, which they’re producing with Lionsgate (evidently happy with the gamble they took in releasing Sicario). It’s a story of special forces soldiers in Afghanistan after 9/11, riding into battle against the Taliban. Last month the company began production on J.D. Salinger biopic Rebel in the Rye and this summer they’ll start on Joseph Kosinski’s No Exit, teaming with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to tell the story of a deadly wildfire in Arizona. Next comes 105 and Rising, an ensemble piece written by Andrew Cypiot and directed by Antoine Fuqua, set in the nightmare chaos of the fall of Saigon as the Vietnam War lurched to an end.

For those who want top-notch entertainment without leaving home, we can be excited for the first-look deal Black Label has with ABC. Jon Schumacher heads up their television department, which for its first foray into small-screen storytelling, has teamed up with director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan), who Smith knew from her hometown Memphis, on music-themed period drama Beale Street Dynasty,about the birth of the blues.

Meanwhile Black Label owns stacks of books and other IP, which they’re pairing with filmmakers and preparing to hit our screens. But whether their next hit is watched in movie theaters or living rooms, Smith and the Luckinbills’ track record has already established them not only as the people with the checkbook, but as artists in their own right. Just as audience members seek out a movie or TV series based on their attachment to stars, directors and writers, Black Label Media is attracting a loyal audience of cinephiles who know where to go for art they can talk about at the water cooler.
So when you look around and worry that capitalism is ruining the world, see what Black Label Media is up to, and remember all the good money can do.

Source: PGA

Molly Smith, co-founder of Black Label Media, and her twin partners Trent and Thad Luckinbill are making waves in the mid-budget film space.

As the major studios have all but abandoned midbudget, adult-skewing dramas, upstarts like Black Label Media gladly are stepping in to fill the void. Launched in 2013 by Molly Smith — daughter of FedEx founder Frederick Smith — and identical twins Trent and Thad Luckinbill, the company has backed seven movies to date, including Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario ($81 million worldwide) and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Jake Gyllenhaal drama Demolition (out April 8 from Fox Searchlight).

After 13 years with Alcon Entertainment, Smith, 35, left the fold (her father continues to be Alcon’s primary backer) and teamed with former Justice Department attorney Trent and onetime soap opera actor Thad, both 40, to pursue their shared interest in auteur-driven projects. With a staff of seven and backing from investors including her father and billionaire Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, the company recently signed on to co-finance Damien Chazelle’s Emma Stone-Ryan Gosling musical La La Land (Dec. 2) as well as the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Horse Soldiers (both at Lionsgate, which released Sicario). In April, Black Label will begin production on Danny Strong’s J.D. Salinger biopic Rebel in the Rye, followed in the summer by Joseph Kosinski’s No Exit (Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing the film, about a deadly Arizona wildfire). In addition to making three to four movies a year, the company now is moving into TV, teaming with director Craig Brewer on a period music-themed drama that will be shopped. Smith and the Luckinbills invited THR to the company’s Beverly Hills offices to discuss Black Label’s billionaire investors, who greenlights projects and plans for a Sicario sequel.

Molly, how did you get into this business?

SMITH I went to NYU, but I always say I got my Ph.D. at Alcon because I got to really grow up under Andrew [Kosove] and Broderick [Johnson] and watch them build their company. I started as a P.A. on their sets — The Affair of the Necklace, Chris Nolan’s Insomnia. Andrew and Broderick were young guys, but they were getting married and having babies and so they knew that my bags were packed and I would go anywhere. Then I got the rights to P.S. I Love You (2007), which was the first movie I produced, from Warner Bros. in turnaround, and got Alcon to option it back for me. It did $157 million worldwide, and we had made it for a pretty low budget. After that, they gave me a first-look producing deal. I partnered with Hilary Swank for two years. We optioned Something Borrowed (2011), which we ended up making at Alcon. Then I got slipped the script to The Blind Side (2009), and I knew the Tuohy family very well [Sandra Bullock played Leigh Anne Tuohy]. We grew up in Memphis together. My youngest brother is marrying Collins Tuohy in three weeks. I brought that to Andrew and Broderick. We got really lucky in that everyone in town passed on that script [the film grossed $309 million].

How did the three of you come together?

SMITH We all met and became friends, like in 2009, 2010. Trent had just moved from D.C. Thad brought me projects, which we actually set up in development at Alcon. It was an interesting transition period at Alcon. Thad and I creatively connected. Trent has knowledge and background as an attorney but also in the private equity world. The three of us started talking and went to Alcon and said, “What if we opened a specialty division?” Ultimately, it felt complicated to do it within Alcon. So we went out and raised a film fund and started Black Label.

Why did you decide against doing it at Alcon?

TRENT They have a fixed number of outputs per year, so it looked like a lot clearer path for us to just step aside and do our own business. We still have a great relationship with them.

THAD The Good Lie (2014) went through them. But we have a little more flexibility to do different sizes and scopes of movies at different studios to tailor-fit a particular project.

SMITH We’re calling those midtier movies, which are tougher for the studios to finance and make. We can make them for a much more nimble price just purely producing and financing them independently, then deliver them [to a studio partner] and still get the best of both worlds.

Molly, your father is a backer of Alcon. Is he also invested in Black Label?

SMITH He’s one of several investors. Daniel Snyder is a minority investor. The way our company is structured, there’s a small silent investor group [that also includes former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale], and then our company is separate from that fund, meaning they don’t fund our overhead and our devel­opment. That’s all us. [Editor’s note: Smith declined to discuss other backers.]

Alcon has had a tough run of late with the Point Break remake and The 33. Any thoughts on its current situation?

SMITH Andrew and Broderick are really smart business guys, and there are so many variables you can’t control in this business. The fact is that they’re still around 20 years later and have seen Warner Bros. through four regimes. Their television department is killing it with The Expanse at Syfy, and they’ve got their management company, Madhouse, and they’ve got a huge opportunity with Blade Runner (2017), which is going to be a game-changer over there.

Who do you see as your competition?

SMITH There are at least 20 or so companies like us in the space, but the interesting thing is we all talk. We’re very close with [producer] Sidney Kimmel. His company partnered with us on Demolition. We’re all getting the scripts at the same time. It’s a super-collaborative environment in this independent space, more than I ever would have thought. Having said that, we understand it’s about being able to react quickly, and the nice thing about us is that we’re the three who can make a decision; it’s not like we have to go to a board. We’re also conscious of not getting into the hype or bidding wars that drive prices up.

Do you have plans to move into TV like your peers?

SMITH Yes. Jon Schumacher is running our television department. We’ve been developing books and IP that we own and pairing them with our filmmaker relationships. We’re taking a couple out now. We have Craig Brewer attached to a book called Beale Street Dynasty, which I’m excited about. I know [Brewer] from Memphis. It’s a really epic book almost in the vein of a Boardwalk Empire, about the birth of [the blues].

What is the status of Sicario 2? Happening or not happening?

SMITH We’re in full development with the studio. I just got a draft [of a script from writer Taylor Sheridan], and we’re really excited.

THAD We’ve circulated it to the reps, and everybody [from the cast of the original is] on board.

TRENT Taylor’s a really great world-builder. He’s got that kind of modern Western voice, which is in vogue right now. And he did it again [with the sequel]. It’s a great big world. We can’t reveal the plot, but you’ll see [Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin] all come back. You have such a great character with Benicio, who was as dark as he was and still so loved. That character resonates so well with audiences. People want to know what happened to him, so it’s a perfect foray for us to explore. Obviously we would love it if Denis could [direct]. He’s a busy man, but he’s certainly part of the process with us right now.

How do you divvy up the workload, and who is responsible for greenlighting?

SMITH You’re looking at it. And it doesn’t matter which one of us you get on the phone. You get the same answer.

TRENT The amount we do [plus] TV requires the three of us to be fully interchangeable.

How would you describe the Black Label brand?

THAD The one common theme is these are filmmakers that we want to bet on or who have already proved themselves in a great way.

Which directors are you dying to work with?

THAD Alejandro Inarritu.

SMITH We’d love to work with [Blind Side’s] John Lee Hancock again. Steve McQueen and Paul Greengrass. Ryan Coogler. I remember being in that Fruitvale Station screening at Sundance [in 2014] and watching that Q&A and I thought, “What a sophisticated filmmaker at 27 years old.” Scott Cooper (Black Mass) is somebody we love and want to work with.

You were recently in Sundance. Is part of your business plan to buy into finished films?

SMITH Yeah. Our first acquisition was taking a small piece of Begin Again. Unfortunately, we were such a small owner of that movie, so we didn’t have much to do with the marketing. Weinstein Company bought it after our involvement. That was getting our feet wet in the acquisition space, and then the second acquisition we did was ’71, Yann Demange’s movie. We acquired for the U.S. and Canada. We knew it was not a huge domestic play, but we just loved the film so much and we were big fans of Yann’s work, and knew he was going to be like a Denis. Our third will be La La Land, which we came in as a partner just off of seeing footage. We’re certainly looking to be more active as buyers at the festivals.

Is there a mandate here to promote diversity in terms of storytelling?

THAD No. We are first and foremost filmmaker-driven. And those are the types of movies that move us.

SMITH The thing about movies like The Good Lie and The Blind Side is they can transcend being more than just a movie. With Good Lie, we realized very quickly the movie wasn’t working theatrically, and we actually went to Warner Bros. and said, “Can we reduce the window?” We made the tough decision, but smart decision, to not go wide and get it on VOD before the holidays, because families will love this movie. Because of that, the film has been discovered in such a big way in the ancillary markets.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Zoey Deutch has landed the sought-after role of Oona O’Neill in Danny Strong’s Rebel In The Rye, the biopic that follows author J.D. Salinger as he prepares to write his classic novel Catcher In The Rye. Nicholas Hoult stars as Salinger and Kevin Spacey is already aboard as are Laura Dern, Brian D’Arcy James and Hope Davis.

Oona O’Neill was the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill and the toast of the New York City social scene, a fixture in gossip columns. She and a young Salinger dated and had a tumultuous relationship.

Black Label Media is financing the movie, which is based on Kenneth Slawenki’s biography J.D. Salinger: A Life. Molly Smith, Trent Luckinbill and Thad Luckinbill are producing with Bruce Cohen, Jason Shuman and Strong.

Deutch recently wrapped production on Awesomeness Films’ Before I Fall based on Lauren Oliver’s YA novel. She’s currently shooting Why Him? opposite James Franco and Bryan Cranston which Fox has slated for a December 25 now, and she’s next up in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some which kicks off SXSW on Friday night ahead of an April bow via Paramount.

She is repped by CAA and Gilbertson Entertainment.

Source: DEADLINE