At the start of 2024, “Black Panther” and “Creed” director Ryan Coogler’s latest movie, “Sinners,” was at the center of a heated bidding war.
Set in the Jim Crow-era South, the movie is an original idea from Coogler with a collection of unique elements: vampires, blues music, and a double dose of Coolger’s longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan playing identical twin brothers.
But whichever studio got the movie would have to agree to the two-time Oscar nominee’s lofty terms. According to Puck News, Coogler not only wanted first-dollar gross points and final cut, but also ownership of “Sinners” 25 years after its release.
When the smoke cleared, Warner Bros. won the movie on those terms. (A request for comment from WB was not returned.)
From the outside, Coogler asking for ownership of the movie looked like a power move by a major industry player whose movies have raked in over $2 billion to date. But Coogler told Business Insider that asking for ownership was less about power and more about personal symbolism.
Warner Bros.
The filmmaker explained that the idea came from the story itself, which, vampires and gore aside, follows two brothers (both played by Jordan) who take over a juke joint in heavily racist 1930s Mississippi. Owning a film about Black ownership was a meaningful sticking point for Coogler.
“That was the only motivation,” Coogler said of wanting the movie rights.
Coogler said the movie was inspired by his grandfather, whom he never knew and who was from Mississippi, and his uncle, who died in 2015.
“My uncle James loved to do three things: listening to Delta blues music, he loved drinking all types of whiskey, and he loved the San Francisco Giants, watching them on TV and listening to them on the radio,” Coogler said. “So if you went and spent time with him he was doing one or all three of those things.”
“That act of listening to that music and feeling he was there with me is kind of what inspired the period setting and the blues. And that is why the movie is so personal,” he said.
Coogler said “Sinners” is the first feature film he’s made that he’ll own. But does he plan to own his films going forward?
“No, it was this specific project,” he said.
“Sinners” opens in theaters on April 18.
