Producer Spotlight: Paula Wagner
Another in a series of occasional posts on notable producers. After your agent and/or manager, there’s probably no bigger champion for a writer’s story than a producer, so it behooves you to understand how their mind works.
Today spotlight producer: Paula Wagner. Here is her mini-bio from IMDB:
Paula was born in Youngstown, Ohio to Edmund Jamison Kauffman and Sue Kauffman, with her two sisters Sally Hale and Susan Brooks. She started her career in the Youngstown Playhouse, then attended Carnegie Mellon University in the Drama department. Paula left Carnegie Mellon to act in New York, where she was asked back to Carnegie Mellon. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and went back to New York to marry Robin Wagner, a Broadway Set designer. Paula and Robin divorced and Paula went to Los Angeles to become an agent for CAA, Tom Cruise’s agent. From there, she met Rick Nicita and married him. During her career at CAA, she and Tom formed C/W productions.
Some excerpts from a recent interview Wagner did with Moviefone:
Is it harder to get movies off the ground in Hollywood these days?
It is, because what’s happened is that the middle has somewhat evaporated. You have the massive event films that are technologically advanced and are epic in proportion and nature. We’re in an era of branded entertainment, which is all perfectly understandable. It makes total sense how Hollywood got where it is and why it got where it is. We didn’t see it coming but it dovetails perfectly with the bottom dropping out of the economy in 2008. As the budgets escalated, and the prints and advertising costs escalated over the 90s and the 2000s, as the DVD market shrank, as independent film and foreign presales transitioned, suddenly you have the very little films and the very big films, but there’s no middle. Not unlike what’s going on in the rest of the world, the middle is being squeezed out.
Was that what you were trying to do with United Artists — keep those middle films alive for a more mature, mass audience?
Yes, I think my goal was taking what was traditionally acknowledged or accepted as the special universe that that phenomenal brand inhabited, and bringing it in to the future. I wanted to make those kinds of films with the high-level talent. I think you can do it all. I have the very distinct philosophy about filmmaking that you can have it all and do it all. It’s hard, it’s challenging, but it’s possible.
I’ll tell you a film I’m particularly a fan of this year. ‘Inception’. That, to me, is a film that did it all, and I’m very impressed that the studio backed that film. I think it’s an extraordinary film; it’s daring, it’s risk-taking and I applaud it. I’d like to see more of that. And it could only have come from Chris Nolan, because he’s becoming a brand through ‘Batman’ and taking those movies into the future. It was a risk, but I think it paid off on all fronts.
Interesting that you say only Chris Nolan, is he an exception, then? Can an auteur still play in the wider, Hollywood system?
We’re not in an era of auteur filmmakers. And it’s not only Chris Nolan, but he created something original and that excites me. I think we’re in an era where we’re examining myths, legend, history and contemporary culture. If you put those three things in together you come up with something original. I think you come up with an ‘Inception’, or an ‘Avatar’. Think about that — another film I loved. Are they perfect? No, but they’re creative and original and they use technology with an appropriate perspective. Their content, their story and their characters — they take you to somewhere you’ve never been. That, to me, is great moviemaking. But on the other end of the scale, you can take a very small film and that film can become something big. I loved ‘Paranormal Activity’, the first one. How clever. $15,000 — good for Oren Peli, what a smart guy to do that.
But it seems to come from that place of visionary leadership on any scale — something you seemed to acknowledge with the ‘Mission: Impossible’ series, giving those movies to Brian De Palma, John Woo and JJ Abrams.
When we began the ‘Mission: Impossible’ series, the whole philosophy behind it was to take a brand, a notable television series, with certain iconic elements — the theme music, the sleight of hand concept, the team concept — and all of the things that tapped in the cultural zeitgeist, and then bring in a classic filmmaker like De Palma and cast it internationally. We shot it Prague — the first major Hollywood film to shoot there. We purposely made it international and brought in a filmmaker to make each one a standalone. I’m very proud of the series, it was always the goal to, within something branded, take the opportunity to do something original.
Is that a philosophy you’re applying to your new company, Chestnut Ridge Productions?
Yes. I’m looking for that very thing — that’s the kind of film I want to make. Something highly original and entertaining — I want it to reach a wide audience — and I’m looking to the international market. We’re working on something in China. As you know, some of ‘Mission: Impossible III’ was shot in China. Basically, those are the areas I’m interested in. I’m also working in theatre and I’m consulting. I’ve been developing a number of pieces of material but I’m interested in putting together the right thing — the right kind of film.
Very much for the Hollywood mainstream?
Absolutely. No film can get made without distribution. Making a film takes two things: money and distribution. Everything else will fall in place if you have those two. The project determines where the money comes from, how much it costs and what your distribution is going to be. The thing I’m working on for China is of epic proportions. I love big, epic productions and I’m also not opposed to doing a small movie that has incredible impact.
A few observations:
* Wagner concurs with the conventional wisdom about the market catering to big movies and small movies with mid-range budget films being squeezed out due to economic considerations.
* Myths, legends, history, contemporary culture: Nice confirmation of the focus I put in my teaching on Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.
* Wagner’s definition of great moviemaking: “Their content, their story and their characters — they take you to somewhere you’ve never been.” Print-worthy quote, don’t you think?
* “Making a film takes two things: money and distribution. Everything else will fall in place if you have those two.” Believe me, producers have those two issues front and center every time they read a script. Can I get funding for this project? Can I get it distributed?
For more of the interview, go here.