Film Courage: How many filmmakers do who make a living making movies?
Glen Reynolds, Founder of Circus Road Films: I’ve had several clients who have gone on to great careers in making films. I sold Shaka King’s first film Newlyweeds who went on to Judas in the Messiah. One of Mike Flanagan’s early films Absentia now made The Shining sequel and lots of other great horror films and series for Netflix. I co-produced and helped sell several films with Ron Bergman who’s a producer, he’s now partnered with Rian Johnson and they did Star Wars 8 and Looper and Knives Out and several other great films. I have a handful of clients that have gone on to have great Hollywood careers. I have a few clients as well that still make movies they’re still trying to make that one that graduates to the studio level but still making indie films, some still very indie, some kind of in the quasi-hollywood indie world of catching talent and having sales agents pre-sell their movies. There’s lots of those movies that kind of out there that don’t bubble up but still kind of make money in strange ways. Then there’s a lot of people that are one and done just because it was such a big effort to get that first one out there and they just never could get quite back to making number two, that’s partly because it’s just hard to make a film that makes money. I think it’s easier when you’re young to bootstrap it and do it for nothing and call in all your favors, but it’s hard to call in the favors twice. It’s definitely a mix.
Film Courage: If you have debt from the movie, that’s difficult.
Glen: I think most films I repped were mostly equity, most of them tend to have found an equity investor to make the film as opposed to…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Glen Reynolds founded Circus Road Films in 2006 to provide strategic advisory services to filmmakers. Circus Road guides filmmakers through the festival and distribution process and negotiates licensing agreements on their behalf. Glen has participated in the sales of over 900 narrative and documentary feature films with many of them premiering at Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, Cinequest, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Fantastic, Telluride and Toronto. Distributors of these films include Fox, Sony, Warner Bros, Universal, Lions Gate, Magnolia, IFC, Strand, Oscilloscope, Drafthouse, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, Starz, Lifetime, ESPN and Syfy. Some favorite films sold include the first films of some successful filmmakers such as Absentia, written and directed by Mike Flanagan (Midnight Mass); Pop Skull, written and directed by Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs Kong); and Newlyweeds, written and directed by Shaka King. (Judas and the Black Messiah). Recent work includes Clean (Tribeca/IFC) with Adrien Brody, My Dead Dad and 18½ with Willa Fitzgerald (101 Films). Glen has also co-produced twenty films to date including his favorite Conversations with Other Women which premiered at Telluride and stars Aaron Eckhart, Helena Bonham Carter, and Olivia Wilde. Other great production experiences include developing two projects with Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) and co-producing five films with Ram Bergman (Knives Out, Star Wars: The Last Jedi). Glen holds a JD from the University of Texas at Austin, a BA in English from NYU and is a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. He serves as a judge for the UCLA Screenwriting Competition and on the jury for the Woods Hole Film Festival.
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