Big and small screen Sinners
Watching Sinners with Coogler's X-Files revamp in the future
I saw Sinners over the weekend on an IMAX screen and, sorry guys, this newsletter from now on will only be a Sinners fan newsletter. The heart wants what the heart wants…
Okay, that may be a stretch, but I do want to draw your attention to a few Sinners-related TV stories worth talking about.
Oh… and if you don’t know what Sinners is, this is the new Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Creed) film about vampires in 1932 Mississippi. It stars Michael B Jordan as twin brothers who open up a juke joint which leads to an Irish vampire-led massacre/resurrections (those vampires have a glass is half-full attitude about giving their victims eternal life).
The film is this incredibly vibrant love letter to the importance of music in culture and storytelling. Plus it has vampires. If you get the chance, see it in an IMAX cinema as it includes sequences that were filmed with IMAX cameras, which means it blows up the screen size multiple times throughout the film to incredible effect.
Anyway, I promised Sinners-related TV stories…
A big influence on the film is a Twilight Zone episode from the third season, The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank. Read more: Polygon
This was mentioned in the newsletter on Friday, but I wanted to revisit it again now having seen the film: He’s behind an effort to revive The X-Files. Now, ignoring the headlines, I don’t care if he is talking to Gillian Anderson about some level of involvement in the revival. Frankly, after some pretty tired final seasons of that show, the pretty terrible second movie, and then the patchy revival (which was a mix of episodes that were among the very best of the series and the very worst), I’d rather Coogler leaves the OG cast and crew alone and forge a new path. What was great about Sinners was how vampire-restrained he was with it. The vampires were secondary to the thematic ideas and characters he had at the forefront of the story. I’m excited about what an X-Files might be where it is a story of the week show and not a monster of the week show.
THR has a story talking about Coogler’s production company and how he and his producer wife were able to turn the film around in 12 months once it was bought by Warner Bros. It gives some interesting insight into his production process, which is worth thinking about as Proximity Media becomes more of a content factory, producing Coogler’s next films AND The X-Files revival. Let’s be real… it’s unlikely Coogler will be the showrunner of the revival series and will reduce his day to day work on the show after it launches. Read: THR
The value of the mid-budget movie
There’s an interesting interview with Steven Soderbergh at The Independent where he talks about the lack of box office for his recent $50m-ish Black Bag.
“This is the kind of film I made my career on,” he explains. “And if a mid-level budget, star-driven movie can’t seem to get people over the age of 25 years old to come out to theatres – if that’s truly a dead zone – then that’s not a good thing for movies. What’s gonna happen to the person behind me who wants to make this kind of film?” Once the dust had settled on Black Bag’s opening weekend last month, its gross became a hot topic within the industry, he says. “I know for a fact, having talked to somebody who works at another studio, that the Monday after Black Bag opened, the conversation in the morning meeting was: ‘What does this mean when you can’t get a movie like this to perform?’. And that’s frustrating.”
He then talks about looking to the future:
“I’ve got a lot to think about,” he says, softly. “I think The Christophers is going to be fine, but after that… I can’t go make another movie whose target audience is the same as Black Bag’s. That’s just not an option.” He says he’s not angry, that the job of an artist is to adapt to the world around them, but that he has been destabilised. “I don’t need any more indie cred, you know what I mean?” he says. “I need to make things that people go see.”
I’m not saying anything new with this (I’m really repeating something similar to what I wrote in March when confronted with a $32 ticket price for Black Bag), but it’s worth noting that this weekend I spent catching up on the back-half of Paramount+’s The Agency. I don’t know what the per-episode budget was for The Agency, but in most episodes you see the show bouncing from multiple sets, outside location shoots with plenty of extras seen in the background, an expansive supporting cast, and decent-sized name actors in the lead roles (Michael Fassbender, Richard Gere, Jeffrey Wright, Jodie Turner-Smith, and buzzy actor John Magaro).
Compare that to what Soderbergh did with Black Bag, which has major set pieces confined to a dinner table and a fairly small, contained cast. Oh, and it also has Michael Fassbender in the lead role. I really liked Black Bag, but in terms of a cinema experience where audiences are paying $32 per ticket for something that feels smaller than what they’re watching at home, it’s clear there’s something broken.
It seems like Soderbergh is having a think about what audiences are after too. Honestly, I’d be more excited at this point if he gave serialised TV another look. His 2014 show The Knick is a fantastic argument for TV as a place he needs to spend more time.
The value of a Star Wars actor
Over the weekend there was a Star Wars Celebration event in Japan. The event is held every two years and is held in different countries - it is run by ReedPop with very close ties to LucasFilm/Disney.
Because of these close ties with Disney, the Celebration events will often include announcements about upcoming shows/movies. The big news from this weekend was the return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in season 2 of Ahsoka.
More interesting than that was this blurb about the value of Star Wars actors in an article on THR about the event. Like any fan convention, fans are able to pay for photos/autograph opportunities with guests. In attendance was Hayden Christensen, Ahsoka star Rosario Dawson, Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Rogue One‘s Mads Mikkelson, Andor star Diego Luna, and Ahmed Best (Jar Jar Binks).
Like with every fan convention, prices charged are not equal. Christensen, who it can easily be argued has not had the hottest career post-Star Wars, was charging the most for fan meets.
The actor was also charging the most, by a significant margin. A photo with the Christensen cost around $208, with the next closest being Dawson, who had an asking price of $181. An op with Luna was around $160.)
News Desk
Prime Video cancelled the final Norman Lear show, Clean Slate. Read: THR
Recurring Gutfeld! guest panelist Tyler Fischer was escorted from the building after asking a staffer out on a date. Obviously, we weren’t there, so we can’t really say how out of bounds the incident was. But we know conclusively that Fisher made reference to the “woke mind virus” in his statement, so we know that he’s a dickhead. Read: Variety
Hit new Netflix show Ransom Canyon is based on a 10-book series by author Jodi Thomas. If you’re curious about the differences between the show and the first book in the series…
And speaking of Ransom Canyon, series co-star Minka Kelly did not get pay parity on the show. Read: Deadline
At the Star Wars Celebration event, Disney announced new Star Wars animated show Maul: Shadow Lord. Read: thefutoncritic
There’s also a new animated spin-off from anthology show Star Wars: Visions titled Star Wars: The Ninth Jedi. Read: Deadline
Young Jedi Adventures will be out in the US fall.
Not joining the new Harry Potter show? Nicola Coughlan due to JK-related involvement. Read: Deadline
That’s the newsletter for today.
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CGI (and other deciding factors) has changed the perception of what a movie IS for a whole generation. When I was a kid, a movie meant a lot of things. But the last couple of decades have defined movies for moviegoers as Big Bulbous Blockbusters with a ton of explosions and effects, and movies that weren't that served only as anomalies.
We need movies like Black Bag that challenge that notion to get adults and serious people back into the theaters. Unfortunately, this won't change overnight, it won't change with just one movie. To expand the idea of what a movie is and what a movie can do, they need to release a few "Black Bag"s. And yes, a bunch of them are gonna be flops, at least until audiences are okay seeing both something as lightweight as "A Minecraft Movie" AND something as thoughtful and mature as "Black Bag". Does Hollywood have the guts to lose a bunch of money first before the audience develops a taste for different types of movies again? I worry.
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
I'm looking for Sinners session times at my local cinemas as we speak. Haha.