Theme Studio Michael Bloom on “Real Pain” and Indie Production

In its first year in the business, the producer Entrepreneur Theme Studio won the gold medal with the best championship spotlight. Ten years later, they Real paina small movie by Jesse Eisenberg.

That film ran for more than a year, starting with a warm applause at Sundance Film Festival (notably, unlike the French, American audiences prefer to sit down) and ended up with Kieran Culkin’s victory with the Oscars that assisted the actors.

This is a proof-of-concept moment for the subject, and over the past decade it has established itself as a top choice for filmmakers, the west of films like Spencer and Ingrid. Almost every distributor passes Real painTheme Selection Funds Only the feature, and eventually sells it to Park City’s key features.

"It's a really beautiful story. The script is incredible, but despite this, there are a lot of people who aren't sure what it really is, and how it's commercial." "After all, it's a business, and if we had crystal balls, it would be much easier." Theme is now replaying with Eisberg's next movie, This Music Comedy, which is A24. "It sounds a bit exciting, but I want to create a company for artists because there aren't many of them in today's business," Bloom said.

In the new year, the theme will be at the Cannes Film Festival with SplitsvilleThis is the latest work by filmmakers Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, who collaborated with the theme on the 2019 comedy The Climb. Before the festival, Bloom talked about thr About the fun of playing with filmmakers and how to keep your costumes independent in the ebbs and flows of Hollywood.

You have had a great year, real pain. Since you are on the other side, what are some lessons learned?

We prefer to get in earlier so that we can really grasp these things and drive creatively and financially to the right results. The real pain is in an interesting way that we don’t really predict it from the jump, but it embodies all these things we can hope for in the project. We have an instinct for this and a supportive instinct for Jesse, who tells the story so deeply for him that we think it would be a very deep work if we could actually shoot the movies we see on the page. There is always execution risk, but this is one of the things I really have the confidence to bet on myself. When you make a movie, there are a lot of variables, which is always amazing to me because the movie actually looks good, just because of all the things that can go wrong.

How do you decide how to produce and fund, and what can you raise funds?

When we started, because it took several years to build our own slate, we were mainly for financing. We were very lucky that our first film was the focus, which made us a map and gave us some credibility. I would say that our preferred method is to produce and finance, with financing, sometimes we will be as fully funded as real pain, while other times, depending on the type or size of the project, we will provide it with others. We love production because I like to put my hands on the steering wheel. I'm willing to invest more money if we have more control over the results and we can also protect the vision of filmmakers. We play a more passive role, but you are betting on someone else’s abilities, which can be tricky.

You have a lot of repetitive business with the film producers. How do you maintain these relationships as filmmakers and movies evolve?

If you are building a company like ours, you need someone willing to bet on emerging ones. With large studios clearly leaning towards large IP and intermediate tendencies, I feel there is a big opportunity. With Mike and Kyle, we met them early on and they were successful the climb. We made a first-view deal with them because we wanted to give them a big sandbox. Real pain In the next movie, we hope we can bring the band back together. And Molly Gordon. We did (her director debuts) Theater CampNow we are working on another movie with her, called A24. We love finding talent early in our careers so that we can grow with them. When building a company, anyone can study the metrics of success. For me, letting someone like Jesse choose to come back and shoot his next movie with us - no better validation.

Although your company has been operating, there are already several outstanding independent outfits coming. How do you make sure you stay floating?

Financial discipline. It's essentially a very risky business and obviously not everything will work. As far as we are concerned, we are lucky to work more than we don’t have. We deeply believe in our ability to choose the right project, which we think will be not only creative, but also commercially. Then we build the deal somehow, ideally we have a significant financial upside and the shortcomings are somewhat alleviated. Now you can never get all rewards, no risks. This does not exist, but we have carefully calibrated how we view and pursue opportunities. We feel we have a good finger on the pulse of what is working on the market, especially what the audience wants. You do have to have faith, and the best thing to do is love the material and feel confident in the people you work with. I really tried hard not to go too far on the snowboard, so what was successful was that it was so good that we wouldn't be hurt too much if something wasn't successful yet.

As an independent financier who sometimes works with major studios for distribution, how do you deal with it when the organizational charts and licensing of these studios change?

As the company's tasks change from time to time, it is impossible to predict where it is placed at any given time. People have changed, their tastes have changed, and the market has changed. For all these variables, it is almost impossible to control. So the best thing to do is focus on what you control. You can't do this if you try to fix pins for a specific buyer or market at a specific time, or try to overtime for something. So the only thing you can do for me is to really believe in what you are doing and have the confidence that you will find a house that fits these things, although people in these places may differ or their tasks may change.