The big names keep taking the stage as the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) and Tuesday’s expanded and broadened KVIFF Industry Days program was no exception — closing out with a conversation between Nomadland producer Mollye Asher and A House of Dynamite producer Greg Shapiro on the art of building a slate with intention.
The latter surprised and entertained the crowd when he made an unexpected comparison: “I made this series of movies called Harold & Kumar. The first one was Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. The second one came out and was made right before The Hurt Locker was made, and they both came out around the same time. And everyone sort of was scratching their head, saying, ‘How can you make Harold & Kumar, which has a lot of really low-brow fart jokes and is a stoner comedy, and The Hurt Locker, which is a really high-minded, very intense war film?’”
His answer was simpler than anyone expected. “In my mind I was always thinking they are kind of the same movie. I love low-brow stoner comedies, and I also love really high-brow war films, so to me it was just working on something that I loved. I really loved both of those movies.”
Asked about the status of the fourth Harold & Kumar movie, Shapiro shared that the screenplay is currently being written. “Everybody’s back,” he added. “Hopefully we’ll be shooting soon.”
The Harold & Kumar franchise had its share of behind-the-scenes casting battles, Shapiro revealed. “There were different directors on each movie, and they are comedies, so you want to reach as broad an audience as possible. So there are a couple of people in some of those three movies that the directors did not want. I can’t tell you who they are, but one of them ended up being just a remarkable surprise. And then there was another one, an underground comedy star that the director wanted that the studio refused to put in, and we somehow won that battle on that person. And it’s just one of the funniest moments in the movie.”
The broader lesson, he said, cuts both ways. “Movies are a series of compromises. And often the most exciting things come out of a compromise” — a dynamic he’s seen play out in casting as much as anywhere else. “I made some movies over the years where the financier or the studio said you have to cast this person. It’s often in a supporting role, and you think this is a terrible idea — it’s a YouTube star or it’s a social media star. Sometimes that terrible casting idea ends up being something that’s really exciting and pops, and people enjoy the movie because of it, even though that’s in total opposition to what the director’s vision was. So it cuts both ways. It’s weird — sometimes the studio is right. I hate to say it, but it’s true. And then sometimes, more often than not, the filmmaker is right.”
The recent breakout success of Backrooms and Obsession only deepened his optimism — and pointed to something bigger. “It’s Gen Z making movies for Gen Z,” he said. “We can get the younger people back to the movie theater. I just think it creates a healthy ecosystem. So I’m feeling weirdly positive, bullish about the state of the business.”
Here is a look at other takeaways from the session:
The Producer’s Voice
“We always talk about a director’s voice, but there is also the producer’s voice,” Asher said. “I am very focused on filmmaker-driven projects,” no matter what genre, she shared, highlighting her interest in specific voices trumps other considerations.
Learning from Nick Nolte
Shapiro used to work for Nick Nolte as an assistant, which he called “my film school.” He shared that Nolte has “this approach of the actor as being in the service of the director.” That includes situations where you don’t agree with the filmmaker.
The Pros and Cons of a Decisive Director
A director’s decisiveness can be an asset, but Shapiro admitted it has also left him with a “graveyard of projects” that never got made because filmmakers wouldn’t budge on casting. “Movies are a series of compromises,” he added. “And often the most exciting things come out of a compromise.” That’s a lesson he’s learned firsthand working with Kathryn Bigelow. “When I work with Kathryn, it’s a very easy dynamic, because she’s so in control as a filmmaker that there’s a certain safety.”
Pivoting
Asher lauded her frequent director partner Chloé Zhao for being “someone who has the real strength of knowing what they want but also has the ability to pivot,” which is great for getting projects done. “She is very good at pivoting.”
A rare pivot is needed when a producer and director get a bigger budget than expected, such as the $5 million that Zhao and Asher got for Nomadland. “We were like, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to spend all that money on’” the producer recalled. “We could make five movies. We were under budget, so we managed to figure out. One of the ways was to pay people really well.”
How about AI?
“I know it is coming, and I’ll use it,” said Asher. “I just want to make good movies. I’m very excited about young filmmakers. That is where the revolution will come if we need a revolution.”
Shapiro has been working with AI companies to learn about the technology, and his experience is that most people at AI companies say the tech will not fully replace humans. His conclusion: “There is a human layer to the equation that will never go away.”
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