Yahoo Lifestyle ‘The Brutalist’ Expansion Plans After Golden Globes Wins; Brady Corbet On Defying Industry Norms With 3-Hour-Plus Epic On Shoestring Budget – Crew Call Podcast
EXCLUSIVE: Following its surprise three Golden Globe wins Sunday including Best Feature – Drama, The Brutalist from Brady Corbet and A24 is heading into the top 15 regional markets after playing in nine theaters last weekend.
The Adrien Brody-starring movie, which saw the actor win his first Golden Globe last night for Best Actor – Drama, has grossed $1.1 million to date. In the film, Brody plays a Hungarian World War II refugee architect in the U.S. who finds his talents being tapped by an acerbic real estate tycoon played by Guy Pearce. Together, they envision the ideal edifice that will bring communities together — much to their pain. A24 snapped up the movie following its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
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Corbet, who won the Globe for Best Director, chats with us on Crew Call about how he made this 3-hour and 35-minute epic (which many have likened to works by Michael Cimino and Paul Thomas Anderson) for a price tag that’s well under $10M. More impressive, he shot the movie in Vista Vision and it’s been playing, and selling out, its 70MM shows since opening December 20.
Says Corbet, “Part of the reason that we were able to make the film for that amount of money was because of great personal sacrifice from a lot of our heads of department producers, my wife, myself, and the cast all working for well, well below their rate.”
Part of the trick in making a highbrow picture of this level lied in “making a package so undeniable and the budget so modest that it becomes very, very difficult for a handful of investors to not show some interest in the project,” says the filmmaker.
He expounds, “We tend to shoot films in a way where we’re not trying to provide an editor or a studio with a ton of options. We are making choices, and we are executing the choices that we’ve made. Part of the reason that a lot of studio projects cost so much money is that 25 people or more are weighing in on the color of the lampshade. I see it happen all the time, you know, (there’s) reshoots because an executive doesn’t like someone’s jumper.”
In its third weekend, all U.S. theatrical engagements for The Brutalist saw spikes over its previous frame including at NYC Village East (+26%), AMC Lincoln Square (+12%) and AMC Burbank (+10%). In exits, The Brutalist‘s audience, mostly under 35, has been comprised of film aficionados (ala Oppenheimer fans) who were coming for an unexpected technical feat and monumental movie.
The Brutalist will also go wide on January 24, a week after Oscar nominations, with playdates in Imax. The pic will also have some Imax showtimes this weekend.
Listen to our conversation below with Corbet.
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