Cathy Schulman has to actually like one thing if she’s going to even attempt to get it made. As an unbiased producer in an more and more constrained market, really filming one thing is an elusive endgame. “Within the outdated days, producers would flip a guide to studio or a community and say, ‘Will you purchase it for me, develop it and make it right into a film?’” says Schulman, who optioned Robinne Lee’s novel The Thought of You alongside fellow producer Gabrielle Union years earlier than ever presenting it to a go well with. “That wasn’t going to work right here.”
Happily, Anne Hathaway‘s curiosity within the romantic dramedy a few single mom who embarks on an unlikely relationship with the lead singer of a boy band (Nicholas Galitzine) helped be certain that Schulman’s efforts weren’t in useless. Amazon MGM Studios boarded the challenge in 2021, and it’s now streaming on Prime Video and showing in choose theaters. Over Zoom in April, Schulman spoke about making her newest function, regarded again on a few of her extra notable credit (Crash), supplied her takes on Hollywood’s present aversion to inexperienced lights and mentioned the Oscars’ 10 finest image nominees mandate — the latter of which she actually isn’t a fan.
Not understanding how a lot this film price, it definitely feels just like the sort of mid-budget film we don’t get a lot of nowadays. How’d you get to a inexperienced gentle?
The extra that my profession goes on, the extra I’ve realized that I really want to tackle an enormous quantity of threat and develop tasks internally for a great very long time. Then, by the point I’m going out to {the marketplace}, I’m asking an organization to make the film and never develop it. On one hand, that makes for a really non-controversial growth interval as a result of I’m my very own boss. Then again, what in the event you do all that work and don’t really promote it? For this, since we went to Amazon with the script developed and Anne already hooked up, the trail from there wasn’t tough.
Inform me about getting Anne Hathaway on board.
I pictured her from the start, and we tried to put in writing the script to her — channel her power within the character. Despite the fact that I at all times say to my workers, “If there’s one factor we by no means ought to do, it’s develop for a single actor. As a result of we’ll by no means get that actor.” Getting her was sort of a miracle. However she had talked about to me that she needed to do a film that might loudly announce that she’s 40 and right here to remain. She will nonetheless sparkle, nonetheless be sensual and sexual and all the things. And we did shoot it within the yr she was turning 40.
Do you consider this as a rom-com?
Effectively, Amazon calls it a “romance seeker,” this style they’ve. We name it a rom-com-drama.
Nonetheless, there’s been a renewed curiosity within the rom-com of late. How a lot had been you fascinated about this servicing that style in a brand new manner?
Very a lot. After I learn the guide, the truth that we had been mainly coping with a rom-com is what acquired my curiosity. And on this specific case, the girl was not selecting between two males — which is the norm. She’s selecting between completely different variations of happiness. She was both going to self-actualize for the weekend in a yurt, or she was going to open herself as much as love and journey. I actually favored the truth that both model would’ve been OK. Personally, once I was studying the guide, I used to be like, “I’d choose the yurt for positive.”
The Thought of You appears to have been buoyed by nice phrase of mouth, out of South by Southwest of all locations. Wanting again, what different tasks shocked you by way of response?
Crash shocked me most. It was the little engine that might. That was a film that I couldn’t get financed inside the system at any firm. It went totally completed to the movie competition in Toronto, and no person purchased it. And it discovered its manner in spite of everything of that. That we made it for $7 million, earned $100 million and gained an Academy Award — a number of of them, really — that was a shocker for positive.
What’s your relationship with the people who find themselves important of the legacy of that finest image win?
Effectively, I don’t know that I’ve a relationship with any of them as a result of nobody’s ever stated it to my face. (Laughs). I feel they’ve an aversion to melodrama, an aversion to soapiness. It’s the identical those who criticize Yellowstone. I’m an enormous Shakespeare fan, and all the things he ever did was melodrama, proper? I don’t know when melodrama or excessive emotional drama turned uncool, however I simply don’t consider that. I hold seeing it work time and time once more for audiences. I feel we like to be moved from tears to laughter in excessive sweeps. I’m drawn to materials like that, and other people at all times inform me that I’m gutter diving. That’s what I take into consideration that. Possibly it was additionally a bit little bit of backlash to having a film be about racism. After I tried to get it made, I stored being informed that racism was “passé.”
I used to be in a gathering a pair years in the past and an unnamed govt went right into a rant about why the film we had been engaged on needed to be higher or else it was going to be a one-hit marvel like Crash — completely forgetting that I had produced it. It was actually humorous to listen to this rant about all of the the explanation why Crash was a film that’s thought of good however isn’t good. Like, it should’ve been bizarre confluence of occasions that made that film win the Academy Award — besides it was an unbelievable yr for films! It was Brokeback Mountain, Stroll the Line [which was not nominated for best picture], Goodnight and Good Luck, Munich. And there have been solely 5 film slots for finest image then.
What do you consider the mandate for 10 finest image nominees?
I don’t prefer it. I’m blissful to be open about that as a result of I don’t consider you possibly can have 10 slots for finest image and solely 5 for administrators. That’s terrible. To know that there are 5 administrators each single yr who direct films that will probably be nominees for finest image and can’t be nominated themselves? It’s so brutally screwed up for a corporation that’s intending to acknowledge our artistry. That concept was to strive to usher in extra viewership by together with larger movies, however I simply don’t assume that algorithm works. And I don’t know of a yr when 10 films are distinctive sufficient to face out. It makes all the things much less. I feel it ought to return to 5.
Nicholas Galitzine and Anne Hathaway in The Thought of You.
Amazon Studios
Going again to the dangers of being a producer, you’ve been at this some time. Are folks exaggerating after they speak about how unhealthy issues are in Hollywood proper now?
It’s the worst I’ve seen. I nonetheless have a whole lot of optimism that it’ll bounce again as a result of I do consider that this entire endeavor of filmed content material is sort of just like the crocus within the snow. It at all times pokes its head out a method or one other — even when it’s getting smushed — however the contraction and consolidation are important. The strikes had been far more damaging than anticipated. What’s at all times regarding in a time like this, when issues get tough economically, is the conservatism of decision-making that tends to come back again. Individuals need to take fewer dangers, do what they’ve accomplished earlier than. The factor we by no means appear to study is that then after we try this copycatting, it backfires. The viewers rejects it.
Extra optimistically, what lesson did you are taking from the success of The Girl King?
I used to be actually excited to be a part of the primary studio film to star an ensemble of dark-skinned Black ladies. That was an enormous achievement. Getting that inexperienced gentle was probably the most momentous factor to me. And I really like that folks love the film. Economically, I want it had accomplished even higher than it did. It did very properly in the USA, however I want it had accomplished higher internationally. The actual signal of success for The Girl King can be in the event that they green-light one other film prefer it.
How did you find yourself writing and showrunning the Showtime miniseries, The First Woman? You had no prior writing credit.
It was my first day out of the proverbial closet. I’ve at all times been the sort of producer who does a whole lot of intensive writing work with my writers and fairly often writes into scripts — so long as they’re comfy with it. On First Woman, we had been assembly Gary Levine and Kevin Beggs, who had been working Showtime and Lionsgate Tv. They complimented a specific scene, and my writing companion Aaron Cooley stated, “Simply praise Cathy on that one. She wrote it.” There was this mic drop second the place each studio heads stated, “Are you within the Writers Guild?” Uh, no? (Laughs.)
At what level did you be part of the WGA?
That day, after they informed me I needed to. What’s humorous is that throughout the strike, there was this false impression that writers had been placing in opposition to producers — as a result of that ridiculous group is named the AMPTP. It needs to be the AMPTC as a result of it’s not an affiliation of producers. It’s an affiliation of corporations. Individuals had been like, “How may you be so imply to writers?” I felt just like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz! Nevertheless it was actually attention-grabbing as a result of I may go to the Writers Guild conferences and listen to all their complaints as a result of I’m now one in all these individuals who is each.
It’s wild that the present got here out solely two years in the past, and Showtime mainly doesn’t exist anymore.
It’s tragic. I really like Showtime. It technically nonetheless exists beneath new administration, however the idea’s gone.