THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 61 OCTOBER 30, 2019
Check out clips from the conversation at THR.COM/VIDEOSony Pictures^18deeply. I watch every episode
and it still is very meaningful
to me.
HORN In my long career, I look
back with great affection at
Rob Reiner’s first film, Spinal
Ta p. I look back at When Harry
Met Sally and The Shawshank
Redemption when we had Castle
Rock together. I loved my time at
Warner Bros. Trying to get Harry
Potter right and making sure
it was really, really good. And
at Disney we are all very proud
of Black Panther and Captain
Marvel because they ventured
into areas that were not ventured
into before.
EMMERICH I am now feeling like a
real underachiever. (Laughs.)
STUBER Two that stick out. I would
have never dreamed what Donna
and these guys have done with
Fast & Furious, but when we [first]
did it I was a young executive and
Kevin Misher bought an article
and said go do it. What was fun
about it was watching all of that
talent have their first hit together.
On the flip side, what was great
for me with The Irishman last
weekend at the New York Film
Festival was being with those
icons and seeing Bob and Al and
Joe and Marty. Just being around
it I felt like a little kid.
HORN So great.Is there one that got away?
Something you regret passing on?
GIANOPULOS The 300 that [Warner
Bros.] made. We had a narrow
window to [make it]. And that
was like a story my grandmother
used to tell me as a little kid.
She always told me Greek myth
stories.
HORN It’s so interesting you’d
say 300.
GIANOPULOS I was so close to it
that I thought we should do it for
real. And I saw this comic book,
the [Frank] Miller book, and I
thought, “Oh come on, you can’t
do it like that.” I thought Ridley
Scott should do it like Gladiator.
HORN When Zack Snyder came in,
I said, “Are there swords in this
movie?” Yes. “Are there sandals?
A r row s? ” Ye s. “ Sh ield s? ” Ye s. I
said, “Come on, we just did Tr o y
20 minutes ago. How are we going
to do that?”
LANGLEY It wasn’t obvious until it
was obvious.EMMERICH We’re about to start
shooting the Elvis Presley movie
with Baz in Australia. And just
listening to Tom’s story I envision
myself in Australia saying, “Baz,
roll! Please roll!”
LANGLEY Just put him on the phone
with Tom.
EMMERICH For me the one that
comes to mind just because it's
happening right now, and I think
Donna might have even been
around when this movie started
— we started developing in 1998
— was Motherless Brooklyn.
LANGLEY Ye s. Ye s. Ye s.
EMMERICH Ed Norton persevered
and we just had the premiere in
New York at the New York Film
Festival closing night. Just to say,
“Wow, we worked on this for 20
years and we actually did it,” is
very satisfying.Jen, you’re relatively new to film,
but what about a meaningful show?
SALKE Having This Is Us come
through the door and the con-
nection to my story — my dad
had died a few months before
— Dan [Fogelman] came in
and he talked about the story
about his dad. We just had a real
meeting of the minds. And the
show has been one that I loveYou’ve all done this a long time.
What’s the one movie that you are
particularly proud that you got
made? Jim and Tom, you can’t say
Titanic or Avatar.
GIANOPULOS Why not?
LANGLEY Yeah, why not?
Because that’s what I would think
you would say.
STUBER Pair of aces right there.
LANGLEY Yeah, those weren’t
easy greenlights.
GIANOPULOS I would say commer-
cially Deadpool, and creatively
Slumdog Millionaire, which [Tom
and I] did together.
ROTHMAN The one I am most
proud of is actually a movie
called Master and Commander
(2003). Peter Weir said no
to me three different times.
And I chased that movie for
14 years.
EMMERICH Wow.
ROTHMAN And I had to become the
head of a studio with this gentle-
man to my right to be able to do
it. Also, just last week I went to
see Moulin Rouge! on Broadway.
And I was sitting there looking at
the aesthetic of it and seeing the
audience response to it. And my
daughter was next to me; she was
just in her teens.
GIANOPULOS It’s funny you say
that because I showed [my kids]
when they were younger, and they
didn’t get it. Now they do.
ROTHMAN It was insane to do that
at the time.
LANGLEY I just rewatched it. It’s
bonkers.
ROTHMAN And I remember stand-
ing on the set in Sydney begging
Baz [Luhrmann] to roll film.
“Let’s go, roll it!”
GIANOPULOS “You have to finish!”
(Laughs.)
LANGLEY It’s such a good movie. A
movie that I am proud of — Scott
was around for it — is United 93,
Paul Greengrass’ movie. The
first movie I advocated to green-
light as president of production.
It was a movie we knew not
many people would go and see.
And we had a screening of it at
the Ziegfeld Theater with all of
the [victims’] families. It was so
powerful and so cathartic. On
the complete other end of the
spectrum, the other movie I am
really proud of from a commer-
cial standpoint was Mamma Mia!
There were a lot of people [at the
studio] who didn’t love Abba as
much as I did.
STUBER I was around. She did love
Abba. That was all Donna.HornAli Wong and
Keanu Reeves
in Netflix’s
Always Be My
Maybe.Netflix 57
Warner Bros. 21Disney* 17
Universal 17
Amazon 11
Paramount 9
Source: Comscore. *Seven of Disney’s releases are 20th Century Fox films.ORIGINAL RELEASES BY STUDIO
Netflix will nearly triple its closest rival in 2019,
though only a small handful of movies are shown in theaters