4.6 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
For Peter Kujawski, chairman of Focus Features, it was “very simple and easy” to greenlight James Gray’s drama “Armageddon Time.” Gray had written the script before the pandemic shut down of March 2020. By that Summer, Kujawski got a call from Roeg Sutherland, a talent agent from CAA, saying he had something that he should look at. Sutherland knew Kujawski was a “gigantic fan” of Gray’s work and he was in a position to say yes to the project. “I was predisposed because of my fanship,” Kujawski reveals. “The movie literally could have been about young James Gray just building a model rocket, and I would have wanted to do it.” Gray, who also produced and directed the film, says he didn’t know of Kujawski’s admiration. “This is fabulous to hear!” Now Gray and Kujawski discuss “Armageddon Time,” the challenges of making the film during the pandemic, their careers, and Gray’s bad experience working with former film producer Harvey Weinstein. But first, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni talk about another producer, Eric Weinberg, the criminal charges against him, and the “club” culture of complicity that allowed him to keep getting jobs in Hollywood.
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0:00.0 | From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business. |
0:05.9 | Writer and director James Gray says he had a great experience making his new picture, |
0:10.7 | Armageddon Time, for Focus Features, Universal Studios' Arthouse Label. |
0:15.3 | Gray has had some bad times in the past, like when he had to deal with Harvey Weinstein. |
0:19.9 | He would say things like, I'm God's editor. |
0:22.8 | I'm the best you've ever seen. |
0:24.6 | And you'd be like, what? |
0:25.7 | You're an editor? |
0:26.3 | You're running the company? |
0:27.4 | And then all of a sudden he would give you a videotape when those existed, and he'd say, |
0:31.5 | here's your movie, enjoy. |
0:33.5 | And you'd be like, what? Gray's latest film is exactly the type of drama that most big studios don't make anymore. |
0:40.2 | But Focus Features Chairman Peter Kajowski gave the project a quick and enthusiastic nod. |
0:45.8 | He and James Gray join us today to talk about Armageddon Time and the business of making Art House films. |
0:52.0 | But first we banter, stick around. |
0:54.0 | It's the business from KCRW. |
0:57.3 | I am joined by my colleague in banter. |
0:59.7 | Matt Bellany. |
1:00.2 | Hello, Matt. |
1:01.0 | Hi there. |
1:01.8 | So this past week, the Hollywood Reporter |
1:03.8 | published a piece that I wrote |
... |
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