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Hollywood Execs Fear Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Deal ‘Could End the Studio System’
Warner Bros.’ unusual agreement with the director has rival executives sweating, with some saying it sets a “dangerous” precedent.
More central to the project’s commercial potential, it had been written, and would be directed, by Ryan Coogler — the creative force behind Marvel’s $1.4 billion–grossing Black Panther — and star his frequent filmic muse Michael B. Jordan in a dual role as identical-twin gangsters turned juke-joint-owner brothers named Smoke and Stack. Two insiders with knowledge of Tarantino’s rights-reversion deal point out that it wasn’t new or unique to Sony but in effect a holdover from an agreement at his previous moviemaking home Miramax (then headed by disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein), where the director had limited license terms on all his movies, such as Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. For Abdy and DeLuca, the stakes seem even higher: On the heels of expensive flops made and released on their watch including Alto Knights, Mickey 17, Joker: Folie à Deux and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, reports have swirled that the pair’s days in the Warners C-suite are numbered unless they can start delivering hits.
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