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The Studio Behind Magazine Dreams Is Hollywood’s Home for Canceled Movies
After Searchlight Pictures dumped the Jonathan Majors bodybuilding drama, only one studio dared touch it — the same one that rescued The Apprentice.
Plotted around a bravura performance by Jonathan Majors — who physically transformed into an actual bodybuilder for the role as a driven but mentally unstable brute-naïf — the indie garnered a standing ovation in Park City’s Eccles Theater and sparked a bidding war between Sony Pictures Classics, Neon, and HBO. Through aggressive marketing and savvy campaigning, Lionsgate parlayed that slim outlay into a robust $54 million at the box office and an Oscars sweep of major awards including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Paul Haggis and Best Picture (upsetting presumed winner Brokeback Mountain in the process). To that end, the company has traversed the high-low, putting out schlocky Liam Neeson thrillers like Honest Thief(2020) and Blacklight as well as the gun-control advocacy documentary Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down and The Dissident(a doc examining the assassination of political dissident-journalist Jamal Khashoggi in context of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to suppress international dissent).
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