Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in which we speak with some of the brightest minds working in the business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with variety. Debuting in theaters this weekend is the horror flick Abigail. One of the logos you'll see on screen before it begins belongs to an indie production label you've seen attached to one of the big success stories in the genre over the past few years, Project X Entertainment company behind the
Scream franchise. On today's episode of Strictly Business, William Sherrick, one of the principles at Project X, discusses their distinctive approach to horror and what's next for the folks at X. We'll be back in just a moment, and we're back with William Sharrick, who is back on the Strictly Business podcast almost exactly two years after his first appearance when Project X released it's very first project, the Jake Gillenhall
action movie Ambulance. Welcome back, William, Thanks for having me so staying with the vehicular metaphors, What has the ride been like for Project X the past two years.
Look, we've had we've had a ton of fun with getting to make a bunch of movies and a TV show, and you know, it's for us, it's how do we just keep finding stories we love that people are letting us go tell.
And let's talk about those movies and that TV show we talked about Ambulance Off the Top. What have been some of the others that you've produced over that time.
So we were fortunate enough to get to make Scream five and six. We just finished this movie at the Gale, which comes out this weekend for Universal. We had Night Agent, which was a TV show that Sean Ryan created on Netflix. We had a little movie called Bedrest that STX and two B took out, which was a ton of fun. And now we just you know, keep trying to move forward and make more stuff.
Sure, and we'll talk a bit about all those projects, but let's start with what's coming to theaters. Abigail, tell us a little bit about this project, how it came together, and what drew you to put this one together.
So in our quest to continue to find great stories to tell with radio silence.
Tell us what about radio silence?
So radio Silence the filmmakers behind Ready or Not that I produced five years ago, now, I guess. And then we put them on the screen franchise on five and six. We were looking for another movie to do with them, and I was talking to Peter Craig at Universal and they had this script that he loved that wasn't wasn't there yet, and he told me this idea about a bunch of criminals who kidnapped a kid and some craziness ensues, and they sent me. He sent me the script and
I said, look, it's such a good idea. Here's what we would want to do to make it a story that we think works for us and radio silence. What do you think? And he said, if you can pull that off, we'll make the movie. And we went away and we brought in Guy Busick to work to work on the script and take it to where it became the draft that we shot, and we got it there and Universal came through and let us go make it.
And I mean, no offense, What is it about that premise that was so irresistible? Because I mean, I don't know, doesn't doesn't scream to me, so to speak, pardon the pun, a project that that was such an irresistible premise.
Look, I think for us, For me especially, I think in the genre space, getting to tell really fun stories inside horror is something that I just enjoy and I think as a group, our whole group enjoys doing. And that idea of kind of mashing up a horror movie and a kidnapping heist movie and what happens when those two meet was just a really fun idea. And then at the center of that, you put a thirteen year old ballerin a vampire who set the whole thing up.
Is just so insane that it felt like something we can have a ton of fun with. And the idea that a group of criminals who are in the real world find out they've kidnapped this specific person and that person then turns the tables. Watching that experience, for me is just crazy fun.
You had me at Valerine a vampire, right, maybe that should have been the title of the movie.
Well, it's definitely the marketing campaign.
But fun and horror and that mashup. Talk to me about that, because you know, it's no secret that horror is one of the few genres that seems to be fairly reliable in theaters these days, and that's saying something. But what is it about that mashup of fun and horror.
Well, I think for me going to a movie right, and to tie back into what you just said, which is it's one of the genres that really seems to be working theatrically. The communal experience of going to a movie for me is genre wise, the enjoyment of something, regardless of of the journey, is something I like when I leave a movie theater. So for the things that I want to develop, regardless of the journey I go on, at the end of the day, when I leave, I
want to have had a really good time. That's not to say I don't enjoy movies that don't do that, the ones that I want to develop, and I want to develop stuff that I have fun with. So the mashup of those two genres for me is the ultimate experience when I leave a theater, which is I could be scared, I could be sad, I can be worried, but at the end of it, there's this cathartic experience where I had a great time. That's what the fun of the mashup is for me.
Well, there's you and me, a bunch of middle aged guys. I would imagine that's not the target audience. I would imagine fun and horror is about attracting people who are our kids' ages, and that's really what appeals to universal and studios. It's about getting an audience that turns out that's, you know, half our age, that comes in groups that maybe wants to see it more than once. Is that really what's appealing about this genre and why it's a reliable draw.
I don't know how to answer that. I think that from I think there's probably a couple of answers. I think on the development side, you have to develop the stories that you love, right, because you have to spend a lot of time with it, and you hope that that translates. I think that the fun of horror, even though you bring up a much younger demographic, which is true, I think that they work across demographics. Right. The question is is my generation going to the theater as much?
I don't know. I don't know those statistics. The younger generation is definitely the generation going opening weekend, right, That's that's what you're marketing, Toure. But I think horror, the genre of horror, spans all the age groups. So to pretend that I know what the kids want today. I just I don't know that I can answer that question honestly. As much as it is, I believe if you make a really great genre movie, all age groups can like it and all age groups can enjoy it. And that's
when that's where casting comes in. If you look at our ensemble cast, I think that it appeals to multiple age groups. I think that having you know, a fourteen year old ballerina vampire is a very specific choice, and all those things tie back to why I believe it works theatrically right every one of those choices.
Well, we're having this conversation a week after a Ghostbusters sequel opened up pretty strongly number one movie. There was some concerns that it wouldn't do as well as the previous film did, which didn't do as well as some might have hope. From the kind of ip that Ghostbusters was, I think it seemed to have been positioned more as a horror movie this time than as a comedy, and I think, to some degree, maybe you'll disagree, was also sort of like a mix of horror and comedy. So
are you feeling good based on how Ghostbusters opened? Or am I making a false comparison.
I don't think that's a false comparison at all. I think it's a I think it's a fair comparison about the state of the business. I don't know if it's a fair comparison movie to movie, right. Ghostbusters obviously a very very well recognized piece of IP right been around for a long time. It's hard to compare that to something that we're starting from scratch, and a marketing department has a much different hill to climb. I think Universal
is crushing it in our campaign. It's they're the iconic image. They came up with it for me as spectacular, and I think they've done a great job. But I think it's hard to compare a movie to movie. But I think what you are hitting on is a what I'm hoping is a cultural feeling of I want to go back to movie theaters and I want to have a good time. I don't want to be I don't need to. I don't need everything to torture me. I don't need everything to be depressing. I don't need everything to be
super dark. I think we're in this place where if you're going to spend the time and money to go out with groups of people. Let's go have fought, And I think that's where the two movies you can have
a comparison to. I think past that, it's hard to compare those two as movies just because an IP alone, you know, Ghostbusters, feels like such a big Now, partly that might be because of my childhood, and I'm a massive fan of that franchise, and I thought they did an amazing job on this new one, so I'm just a fan of that. But it's hard to compare because when you're starting with zero from an IP standpoint, you're just a it's a different hill to.
Climb, and here we are, I think starting from zero with IP in Abigail. I mean, look, you you rebooted the screen franchise so brilliantly, but you're not starting from zero there. You could conceivably just play it safer and reboot a bunch of old IP. Why even roll the dice with something new? Or is the whole point here that you do this right and you've got Abigail one, two, three, four, five coming out and that's the whole point.
I don't know that I look at the world that way. I think that's it's a fair question. We we at Project X, and then especially when we're working with Radio Silence, you know, this was our fourth movie together. I think that the IP thing is a corporate strategy, right, or a business strategy versus just a creative strategy, and I think that they can coexist together, right. The idea when you see a piece of IP, if you have access to it or you can grab it or get involved
in it, Absolutely, it's a great business strategy. And if you have a story to tell to relaunch something or you figure out a way in that you believe will work, great business strategy, great creative strategy. But that's for us at least at Project X. You can't just do that soly because there's not enough IP out there that everybody has equal access to. And then on the other side,
producing is also opportunistic. When you hear an idea that you love, or you come up with something that you want to develop, you run with it and the hope is you can turn it into something. And this fell into that category, right. We heard an idea that there was a script that we thought was super cool, that could be something awesome, and then universal God loved them, gave us the chance to do it and here we are, so I think they can those two ideas can coexist.
We'll be back in just a minute to talk more strategy with William Sharrick. And we are back with William Sharrick of Project X Entertainment. William, how are you feeling here in the as we close the first quarter of twenty twenty four about the theatrical business in general? There's always concerns about the viability of this business. Yes, there's been the Barbenheimer's of the world, but we're still not quite where we were pre pandemic in terms of the
viability of theatrical especially versus streaming and the like. And so I'm curious how you're feeling about the business.
Look, I think that I'm an optimist by nature. I think you kind of have to be as a producer, because no movie gets made because it should, right, You're constantly trying to get stuff made. So I'm an optimist at my core. I will always think the theatrical experience is an experience that is not going to die. I just don't believe that. I wake up not thinking about
the world that way. What I do feel as we develop the stuff we're developing, we're working with the studios and the different streamers and the different financiers that we have the pleasure of working with. You do feel that there is a sentiment right now that people inside the industry really want it to work, right, Like people really want theatrical to continue to work and grow again, which
is great. The opportunity I think is sitting out there right now is how can you do things differently right? How can you come up with interesting models to build a movie, make a movie, finance a movie where theatrical is part of the equation from start, whether that's inside the system or outside the system, and then taking it into the system from there right whatever that is. I just feel like people are willing to be creative right now in the structure conversation, which to me is a
really good sign. As you start talking to filmmakers, talent talent agents, filmmakers agents, everybody just feels like, Okay, how do we build this to make sure we go theatrical because that experience is just fun and I think we all want it to work. So I'm super positive and optimistic about it.
And I would imagine that strategic philosophy animated your recent alliance between radio Silence and MRC Yes, that was.
Born while we were on set for Scream five. Actually, me, Matt Tyler, Chad who Matt Tyler and Chad of three
partners at Radio Silence. We're having a conversation about how cool it was that we were able to work with them on Ready or Not and then get them to be able to direct Scream and what that jump was and our access to the next generation of them, right, of these young, younger horror creators in that genre, and how much fun would it be if we could create a business that developed that talent at a fun price point.
And MRC just they're unbelievable partners. They think about the world the same way we do in terms of making movies. And we went to them and said, what do you think about giving us a platform to be able to put a bunch of movies that kind of fit our DNA as we find new stories to tell in the genre with new filmmakers, And they were all in. So it just felt like the next evolution of how we all get to keep working together.
Okay, speaking of evolution, you know, last time we talked two years ago, you seemed like you were out there looking for opportunities to grow the project X business. From an emin sorry, from an M and A perspective, you seem to be on the hunt for a content library as opposed to just being in the producer for higher business. Is that ambition still on the table?
Where are you with that one hundred percent? I think that the hardest part is there just aren't that many libraries available. You know, they've been gobbled up by different places. But from an M and A perspective, we're constantly looking at stuff. I think there are some really interesting service businesses that you could look at to create a pipeline to deliver movies better, faster, cheaper, smarter inside the system
and outside the system. And you know, some of my resume in the past, having run parts of the Deluxe Entertainment Group in the service business, lends itself to looking at those opportunities. So for me, I we look at it and say, at any moment, what is the right opportunity to grow assets to be able to allow filmmakers and storytellers to tell their stories. So we will continue to look for those assets as they show themselves. You know,
the pandemic was an interesting blip. The strike was an interesting blip, and as as we look to the future, will just continue to track these opportunities and hopefully, hopefully that M and A from an M and A perspective specifically, they'll continue to show themselves.
You've also got some interesting projects coming up that don't feel like the typical genre stuff that I would consider the specialty of Project X. You've got things like the Nuremberg Project, a Fountain of Youth project with John Krasinski. Are you guys heading to oscar Land? Is this kind of a departure for Project X.
No, I don't think it's a departure. I think it is evolution as you continue to grow and build a slate. Right when you look at how you start, right, we started from zero with no projects, as most companies do, right, unless you start with a library. So you build your slate. You start with your core friends and family for lack of a better term of you know, writers, directors and those scripts. And then as you grow your slate you start to round out with just stories that you love.
And we have the benefit of a best in class screenwriter as a partner in Jamie Vanderbilt, that that brain never stops from an idea generation and putting words on a page in a ton of genres. So it automatically leads you into a bigger slate of diversification.
And you know, we shouldn't allied too easily over what you've got going in the TV space. I remember two years or ago talking about The Night Agent, like it was like, oh, yeah, you're also in TV. The Night Agent is a massive hit on Netflix. And I said to you at the time, like, listen, isn't TV kind of a better business to be in the movies? And lo and behold, You've got this huge hit here. And so I kind of repeat the question I made to you two years ago. Why not just be focusing on TV.
You could turn The Night Agent into a big franchise onto itself.
Look, I think for us we love the TV space, we really do. But at the same time, on a producer level, we are non writing producers in television, so it requires great showrunners to come in and build it. And you know, Night Agent, for all the work we did,
do it really is in Sean Ryan. We trust, and he is just a genius and the level of creative and operational expertise that he brings to it is why that show is what that is right, And so it's about finding the right ideas, the right properties, the right projects that we can take to our friends and colleagues like a Sean to create more of those, as opposed to just saying we're now one hundred percent focused on the television business. It's a very specific space for us and requires those partners.
Well, it's a high class problem to have. I guess let's just focus on the short term. Good luck with Abigail this weekend, and appreciate you coming back on the Podwell.
Thank you so much, good luck, take care, Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcast or Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for our free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business.