Ron Liebowitz:
Welcome, and thank you for joining Alumni Weekend as we celebrate our remarkable alumni and their contributions across so many professions, exhibiting such broad talents. Due to the pandemic, Michael Sugar, Class of 1995, was unable to receive this award last year and so I'm delighted to have the opportunity to recognize and celebrate his accomplishments and to introduce a dialogue between him and one of our most esteemed faculty members. That esteemed faculty member is Professor Thomas Doherty, a cultural historian and professor of American Studies here at Brandeis. Tom's work reflects a special interest in Hollywood cinema and he has written several books, including Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s; Cold War, Cool Medium Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture and Show Trial: Hollywood HUAC and the Birth of the Blacklist. His most recent book, Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How The Media Covered the Crime of the Century, was published last year.
Ron Liebowitz:
Michael was one of Tom's students here at Brandeis, and I'm pleased to have the opportunity to listen to their conversation on a topic that I suspect sparks an interest in all of us, one way or another. Now it's my honor to recognize Michael Sugar as the winner of the 2020 Alumni Achievement Award. Michael Sugar, Class of 1995, is an Academy Award- winning producer and the CEO and founder of Sugar23, a management production and private equity company. At Brandeis, he was active in the student union and worked at BTV, Brandeis' television station. An American Studies major and Film Studies minor, Michael took three film studies classes with Professor Tom Doherty. In addition to sharing his deep knowledge of film and cultural history, professor Doherty gave Michael the simple, yet formative advice, "Don't just make films, make good films." After graduating as the valedictorian of his class, Michael went on to law school at Georgetown.
Ron Liebowitz:
He then followed in the footsteps of his father, a film producer and distributor. In 2016, Michael was awarded the Oscar for best picture for Spotlight, a film about the Boston Globe's investigation into child molestation within the Catholic church and the attempts to cover it up. He has produced a number of series and features including The Laundromat, Dickinson, Maniac, I Am the Night, The Report, The OA, The Nick and the hit Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why. He won Peabody Awards for the series The Knick and Dickinson. In 2017, after a long stint at Anonymous Content where he was the partner for many years, he founded Sugar23, which has partnerships with Netflix and Time Magazine, among others. The company works across media and recently launched an independent podcast studio, in-house, as well as a book imprint in partnership with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Recent movie credits include The Report starring Adam Driver, Annette Benning and John Hamm about the Senate investigation into the use of torture and interrogation by the CIA following 9/11, and Worth starring Michael Keaton about Ken Feinberg, administrator of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.
Ron Liebowitz:
Michael is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, The Producers Guild of America and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He lectures regularly at USC, NYU, Columbia and the American Film Institute. So with great admiration, I now present Michael Sugar with the 2020 Alumni Achievement Award whose citation reads: Michael Sugar, Class of '95, a leading film and television producer whose projects reflect a passion for inquiry and exposing injustice. Winner of an Academy Award for Best Picture for Spotlight and two Peabody Awards for the series, the Knick and Dickinson, founder of Sugar23, an emerging management and production company supporting creativity across numerous platforms. In recognition of distinguished contribution to one's profession or chosen field of endeavor, the Alumni Achievement Award represents the highest form of university recognition, bestowed exclusively upon alumni. The Brandeis Alumni Association is delighted to confer the 2020 Alumni Achievement Award, to Academy Award-winning film and television producer, Michael Sugar, Class of '95. Congratulations.
Michael Sugar:
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Ron Liebowitz:
Now, it's my pleasure to turn things over to Michael and to Professor Thomas Doherty. Take it away.
Tom Doherty:
Thanks, Ron. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and to chat with Michael about things education and things Hollywood. Mike, I'm sorry we can't do this person-to-person, face-to-face and hopefully, next year or at some point when all this digital reality is over, we can sit down and have another kind of conversation, but this is really a pleasure. I thought what we could do with for the next 30 or 40 minutes is to talk about your career and I'd like to, especially, get your observations on what's going on in the motion picture industry today and to maybe do a kind of Ralph Edwards, This is Your Life, which is a reference people under a certain age won't get, but people over a certain age might get, trajectory of your life and career. Maybe a good place to start is just tell me where you grew up, who your parents are, what they did.
Michael Sugar:
Sure. Well, first of all, it's really an honor and thanks to President Liebowitz for this and Tom, there's no better person for me to do this with. My experience with Brandeis is so connected with you and the time we shared and the lessons I learned from you, so I'm really grateful for you doing this. I'm an LA native. I'm one of the few Southern California natives that live in Southern California still. I grew up in an industry family. My father was a pioneer in international distribution and subsequently, became a producer. My mom was similarly a producer and in acquisitions and it was just telling stories was something I wanted to do since I was a kid, my brother and I, actually I think my brother's watching, we used to pretend that we were studio executives when we were kids.
Michael Sugar:
I don't know why that was because both my parents really pushed us into thinking about other things, because the entertainment industry is fraught with lots of unholy things that parents don't want their kids to experience. So in spite of their wisdom and advice, it's just something that I could never shake and it was solidified in my experience, really, at Brandeis because I saw the power of storytelling and the impact that I could create, or I hoped to create in the world through that medium or all of these media now better have expanded a lot beyond film. So I was in LA, when I left high school a couple years early to go attend an international school called the United World College, which was also really important for me.
Michael Sugar:
Then I went into Brandeis and that was my stint on the East Coast, where it began. I went to DC for law school and then, really, have been back and forth between LA and New York ever since. And LA is home. I have an amazing wife, Lauren, and I have a four-and-a half almost five-year-old son, Cooper, which makes everything worthwhile and it gives me the strength to do this. I have great friends, many of whom I still am very close to from Brandeis, assured many of them are here. Mike Mayer, who's been one of my closest friends since I'm 12- years-old is now my partner and runs our podcast business among other things, so this is a Brandeis family even at work and I'm just happy to be here.
Tom Doherty:
How did you choose Brandeis?
Michael Sugar:
How did I choose Brandeis? Well, partly because Mike Mayer was there and he was having such a good experience, but also, because I really liked the idea of being in a school that was prestigious and top-notch, but also, wasn't so steeped in tradition that had been 200 years formed that I could maybe be part of some disruption within it. That was my ambition at the time. I wanted to be in Boston and I just loved the energy when I came to campus, so there's a number of factors, but I loved it when I went there the first time. So it was pretty much a fait accompli when I walked the campus for the first time.
Tom Doherty:
I know I mentioned this to you-
Michael Sugar:
I love hills. I love really, really uncomfortable hills. That's my jam, so ...
Tom Doherty:
Yeah. Well, it keeps you in shape. I think I might've mentioned this to you, Mike, but one of the things I remember about your generation, and there are certain classes when you teach that are just golden, that you keep them in your mind for all time. Mike was part of a generation of students that were just really unparalleled. I remember, especially, when we were involved in the film seminar. I think it was your junior year, it's usually a senior year class. I can't remember quite specifically, but I'd walk into those classes and basically just sit down and turn you guys on. It was a group of about 10, 12, really terrific and memorable students. Andrew Douglas was in that class, I believe, and Mike Mayer was part of that crowd as well. One of the things that I like about Brandeis so much, and it was really true of your generation was that the students were both rigorous, but they also had fun.
Tom Doherty:
That you really loved the medium of cinema, but you did the work. You did the reading. You came into class loaded for bear. So for me, it was always, I tell students, and I think maybe not just to stroke them, that one of the great things about teaching film is that you learn something from every class because the people around the table have an expertise you don't have, whether it's in music or fashion. So a different set of eyes can always teach you something, maybe in a way, if you're teaching chemistry or accountancy, you might not get that same kind of information each time and your group was especially memorable. Your class was the one that Sumner Redstone came to visit, right?
Michael Sugar:
Yes.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah. Now, I remember a story about you in Sumner Redstone that you might want to tell, because I think it's an operative definition of chutzpah.
Michael Sugar:
Yeah. There's a lot of stories from Sumner, but I'm an opportunist, so when he came I figured that was my way to start selling shows. So I wrote him a letter after our class about an idea that I had for a TV show and I got a response and a month later I was in New York pitching to the president of MTV and we sold the show. That was the first show I ever sold. I wish we made that show, but we never made it. Then I ended up seeing Sumner, my first movie that I ever made was based on the book, A Separate Piece, that I produced with my brother, J.B., and it was a Paramount movie.
Michael Sugar:
He had just acquired Paramount and he was incredibly gracious to us in that process, so he stayed around. He was a controversial figure, for sure, but in my life, he was helpful and kind. It was interesting because he only communicated by fax. Even when emails were around, he would just send faxes and he was a hand writer and he would, he would write his notes to me. So it was a great opportunity for me to meet him and it actually was quite a door opener in my career. Thanks, Brandeis.
Tom Doherty:
So you graduate Brandeis. Now, was it a Brandeis that you really decided to get into the business?
Michael Sugar:
I knew I was always going to do it. It was something that I always wanted to do, but when you're in college, you have the opportunity to be exposed to different things and I always wanted to go to law school as well. So I was open-minded I suppose, but I never shook it. I never shook this desire to be a producer and it was just something that I've wanted. The closest I ever came other than wanting to be a professor, which sometimes when I have bad days, I think of just quitting and do my true passion, which is, that's what I will do at some point.
Michael Sugar:
The only other job I ever really considered for a minute was going into the JAG Corps because I was in law school and I was getting recruited by the agency to come be in the JAG Corps. I was thinking about A Few Good Men and how good looking they all were and I thought, "Maybe I look good in uniform," but I was seduced by it for about a month and then I realized, "Nah, I don't think I can do that." So it's really the only thing I've ever wanted to do.
Tom Doherty:
Can you tell us exactly what a producer does? Spotlight might be the thing that we're most familiar with, most of the audience, or 13 Reasons Why. Pick a project and maybe, if you could, lead us through from when you first become involved with it to fruition.
Michael Sugar:
Yeah. Every project that I do is bespoke in its expectations of the producer, but the general way I would describe the role that I play, at least as a producer, is like being a co-founder of a company where the other founder is usually the writer or whoever creates the IP and then my job is to take that from the moment it's conceived to the release of the product. So in a corporate analogy, I am the co-CEO of that business and my job is to make sure the product is developed properly, the screenplay, and to make sure that when we go to production we have the money. So I do the fundraising and that can come from individuals or private equity or studios or streamers.
Michael Sugar:
Then, generally, I'm on set to ensure the quality control and be there to assist in the creative process, but really empower the filmmaker. Then my job is to make sure there's a marketing campaign and the product is delivered. Then sometimes, there's Oscar or awards campaigns and other times, not. Usually, other times not, for me, unfortunately, but I'll take one. But the job is, really, to run the business of the movie and that includes creative input, but it's largely a professional strategy. Spotlight was brought to me by two women, Blye Faust and Nicole Rocklin, who had this idea and had done a ton of research and came into my office one day with boxes of stuff.
Michael Sugar:
So we got involved eight years prior to shooting the movie with that and called all this information. Then, we flew to Boston and interviewed the Spotlight team and found a writer and a director. So that was a really long process that sometimes they go real fast, where something will come in. I've had an experience where we got a script on a Friday and we were shooting 12 weeks later. That's rare and most of the time, it's a longer build. So we have the movie that we have, Worth, coming out in the fall. It was also similar to Spotlight, almost a ten-year pro process from the beginning. So it's a nebulous job in some ways, but I think the closest way to describe my role is I run the business of the creative process.
Tom Doherty:
Unlike a director, you, maybe, have several irons in the fire at the same time?
Michael Sugar:
Correct. Correct.
Tom Doherty:
How do you manage that?
Michael Sugar:
Like anybody, you have to pick your moments and try to be in as many places at the same time as you can. Luckily with production, generally, we don't have too many going on at the same time and now I have a real phenomenal team. My partner, Ashley, is a really brilliant producer so now I'm two, and then we're trying to cultivate other producers. Then inside of our operation, there are other producers, Mike Mayer being one of them who's a truly capable storyteller. So that's how we can scale our business is by teaching others how to be producers and giving them credibility so that I don't have to be there all the time.
Tom Doherty:
Was there a point when you were making Spotlight that you knew you had something special for the ages?
Michael Sugar:
Honestly, I knew it was important because I cared about the story. I didn't see it going as far as it went. I was, I think, too close to it and that's always the case for me is I can never really tell. There was really two moments that gave me some sense of, well, there's three. One, my wife told me I was going to win an Oscar. I thought she was nuts.
Tom Doherty:
When did she say that?
Michael Sugar:
Before she saw the movie, but she just had some premonition. She woke up one morning and said, "You're going to win an Oscar," and I said, "Okay." So that's where it started, but then I think at the Toronto Film Festival, because our first review in Venice was a disaster, there was a Variety review and the guy just ripped it. I thought, "Oh boy, here we go." Then other reviews started coming in and it became a darling of journalists, which, I think is a big reason why it had so much success from the critics. But at Toronto, my father said, and I was surprised, he said, "This one is going maybe all the way." Then you told me when we had our premiere in Boston that you felt like it had a real shot. So for me, I'm certainly not humble, but I'm self-aware and I just didn't see or it was not something that I thought would ever be in the conversation until the momentum started to come and there it is.
Michael Sugar:
But it was, I think, the night before I was more nervous last night because I was going to sit for an hour with my scary professor today. I want to sound smart, but I think that the night before we were not supposed to win. All the prognosticators put us third, but I just had a good feeling about it and you want to win. That's the other thing that I'll tell the truth now for everybody that's been lying, everybody really wants to win. On the whole, it's an honor thing like it is, but people want to win and because you don't go into our business without thinking that someday that could happen. So when you get that close, the pressure was really substantial. We all felt it.
Tom Doherty:
So, okay. So you're in the room, you're in the tuxedo. Take us through that.
Michael Sugar:
Well, my wife was just at the worst part of being pregnant, so in one side of my mind, I'm thinking, "Okay, is she okay?" I've got all kinds of emotions. We'd been through a really long journey on the film. There was this one thing that I had done, which I'll share the story. Lauren, my wife, said, "You should manifest things. You should meditate on things that you want to happen," and so I would. I would meditate on things for my family and meditate on things that mattered. Then, at the end, I would throw in a meditation on winning an Oscar just to see it. What happened was Leonardo DiCaprio had won for Best Actor and I knew the final award was Best Picture. I saw through, you couldn't see it on television, but you could see it in the room that Morgan Freeman was coming out to present the final award.
Michael Sugar:
Now they don't tell any of the nominees who's presenting which award. That's a surprise, but I had always pictured Morgan Freeman presenting the award. When he did that, it gives me a little goosebumps here, I think I grabbed my, ... Did I grab your knee? I grabbed my wife's leg and I said, "We won." She said, "What are you talking about?" But in that moment, I knew it and in my heart and I didn't actually know it, and there it was. It's surreal. It was a totally surreal moment, but it was a pivotal moment for me in my career because the next morning I woke up and I had to race back to New York because I was shooting a movie and I had all these other obligations and I realized that I wasn't happy. I was excited, but I wasn't happy; I was just relieved.
Michael Sugar:
I think one of the things about the entertainment industry is because of the way that it rolls, you don't get a lot of time to celebrate moments. So that was a real turning point for me professionally. I made some real changes in my life and that's when I decided I wanted to go out on my own that morning. So it was really cathartic in that regard. I wanted to make sure I found joy in what I was doing and, obviously, for me, I think my wife now, she tells me the story that she was like kind of disappointed that I won only because she realized that we were going to be out all night and she was pregnant. But I think what I didn't realize then how important it would be for me. I didn't realize someday I would get the Alumni Achievement Award from Brandeis University, but the doors that it has opened, weirdly as it is, it's much bigger outside of the entertainment industry than inside of it. CEOs of global companies take my call, which is great.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah. I remember that night. It was at the Coolidge, wasn't it? Is that where it debuted?
Michael Sugar:
In Boston, where we met, yeah.
Tom Doherty:
Right, and which is a great venue and is now reopened, fortunately. It had to score with the hometown crowd and I think you could feel the momentum in the room because if the film didn't score with that crowd, which knew this story so well, it might not have gotten the kind of bounce it ultimately did. There were scenes in the film that I think if you're a Bostonian, you remembered so well in that moment, when the Boston Globe that Sunday, landed on everybody's doorstep is a moment that I think, especially if you're a Boston Irish Catholic, you might remember that moment and then open up the Boston globe and reading those revelations in black and white and how stark they were. I thought that the film was very powerful in that and it got the accents right, which is-
Michael Sugar:
It got the accents right, but look the most-
Tom Doherty:
So that's hat's most important about a Boston movie to us.
Michael Sugar:
We did shoot in Boston for that reason. But look, the reality is the most important thing for me, personally, that came out of that film other than the obvious career advantages that that movie really made impacts.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah.
Michael Sugar:
I remember we would go to these Q&As, you do these panels all the time when you have a movie coming out. In every instance, at least one person would raise their hand and say, "I'm a survivor and I've never told anyone and this movie gave me space to do that." So that's when life and art really, for me, come together is when you can actually touch people. Whether you make a comedy or a drama, if you can give somebody something meaningful, whether it's a distraction or a provocative, an opportunity for them to go through an inner conversation or a shared conversation, that's a big win. That movie was, obviously, very impactful that way. We had dialogue with the Pope after, and I don't know how much it's really changed, but there have been some positive changes. Certainly, that's the best takeaway and I still get letters from survivors all the time.
Tom Doherty:
Do you choose films with that in mind, that's what you might call either social justice or social transformation, or some of your projects?
Michael Sugar:
I think some of my investors are watching, so we're very capitalist in our motives. However, I think they also love that we do have a double bottom line in our approach, so we are a business and we want to make movies that deliver audiences or TV, but we always look at projects through the lens of is there a more impactful message? I think, ultimately, I personally gravitate towards that. The Laundromat was Jake Bernstein's book, which won the Pulitzer about Mossack Fonseca. It was really about privacy. I did the Julian Assange movie and the report obviously, and movie worth, so I think we gravitate towards those kinds of films, but we're also making the Hulk Hogan movie coming up and even that has pathos.
Michael Sugar:
I don't want to make documentaries for this. We make them, but I don't only want to make worthy movies; I want to make commercial movies that are worthy and I think Spotlight hit the bullseye on that because it played a bit like a thriller and it was more accessible. It was a small target, so we want to do good. That's why I'm in this business, ultimately. I went to this international school before Brandeis. All my colleagues or my former classmates are working for philanthropic organizations or in government and we all wanted to change the world. That was the idealism of it. I always saw the power of storytelling as my way to make that contribution. 13 Reasons Why, which was a huge hit, was obviously about exploring adolescent themes and conversation was stirred and even things that may feel a bit more commercial on the surface. Dickinson, which I'm so proud of, his-
Tom Doherty:
And your American studies background certainly.
Michael Sugar:
Of course, thanks to you, we want to tell stories that are accessible and feel broad enough that because the ultimate goal is to capture people that aren't interested in this subject. Otherwise, you don't have a true audience. That's the point of art is that it's consumed by more than just the person for whom you make it and so I don't want to sound too idealistic, but I am deeply passionate. A lot of our businesses are about important things. So Mike Mayer's podcast group, one of the big projects that we're launching in the fall is a Person of the Week with Time where we're going to explore all of the most impactful people in the world each week. Our book imprint, we have a huge book coming out in the fall about the vaccine race, and we have Cody Keenan's book, the Obama speech writer, coming out. So we look for the stuff that's going to connect with the widest audience, regardless of the medium, but I want it to be meaningful.
Tom Doherty:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). I guess my other question would be, like a lot of producers, you're one of people in the business now where before I'm seeing people were kind of track either to television or movies. In the last 10 years, those kind of boundaries have been pretty well eliminated. You're working in streaming, the world of Roku you're also doing theatrical projects. Are any distinctions in those two categories meaningless now? They weren't 20 years, but they seem to be now.
Michael Sugar:
10 years, maybe less.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah.
Michael Sugar:
Look, obviously, theatrical has challenges right now, pandemic aside, which has been the biggest challenge. The greater challenge is that it takes a lot for people to leave their home and spend a lot of money to go see a movie. It's not the only distraction that's available anymore. Most people have very sophisticated, or at least more sophisticated, electronic setups at home and so they can experience a movie in a nice enough way that they don't feel like they're sacrificing it. I think I read once that the average person in America lives 22 miles from a movie theater, and which I was surprised by, but because I live in a bubble, but I think that's probably an accurate fact. It's like 80 something dollars, on average, to take a family of four to see a movie and feed them overpriced popcorn.
Michael Sugar:
So to get people into the theater, given all of that and given YouTube and gaming and short attention spans and all of that, and then you add that add a pandemic to it, it's going to be tough to rebound and also the migration of all the talent industry because before, television was a sacrifice if you were a movie star; now it's that the opportunity. So I think we have our work cut out for us on theatrical. The flip side is there are many people that love to see movies in theaters. The last two weeks have been very heartening for me seeing what's happened with A Quite Place and the fact that people came out in droves to see it.
Michael Sugar:
I think In the Heights is having a similar weekend now and maybe all of this isolation we've experienced has given it a boost, I hope. But the streaming opportunities have been phenomenal too because all the consolidation in the marketplace with Disney and now Discovery HBO and Netflix being as successful as it is, and Apple, it's great for content creators because there's a cold war going on and I make the weapons. So it's great for creative people and that's great for actors and writers and filmmakers and editors and gaffers. So I'm excited by what's happening with the entertainment industry right now. The last year was rough for everybody because there's just a handful of things that got made. But now it's like a complete slingshot. Everybody's running and going, so ...
Tom Doherty:
Well. Yeah, and we all hope it winds up in the theater at some point because-
Michael Sugar:
Sure.
Tom Doherty:
... like you, I watched A Quiet Place. I've been going to movies since last summer. The AMCs were open here. You had to wear a mask and anytime I would go, because I'm a movie person, I'd go see Russell Crowe movies. I saw both Liam Neeson movies. They were all great. It was just so great to be in a theater, but it was not until Quiet Place where you were there without a mask and there was a pretty good sized crowd for it. It was like single digits before that, that you felt that experience that we all treasure in a motion picture theater, like in the Coolidge watching Spotlight when you're with a group of people in the same time, uninterrupted by your damn devices, watching a very powerful, well-done film. That was the first time, really, in 14 months that I've had that experience and it really was something to-
Michael Sugar:
I think what propels the success of any consumer product, movies, television or fidget spinners or whatever they're called, is this desire for a shared experience, right? I think that has been enhanced by the isolation. So my hope is that this opportunity for a shared experience will come back as quickly as the world is, hopefully. So we'll see. Netflix understands the importance of theatrical. They talk to us all the time about it, so I think you'll see more.
Michael Sugar:
You'll probably see Netflix theaters is my guests and they'll let people come watch movies for free in the theater, which would be great.I don't know that independently, but I wouldn't be surprised. But I think that art should be consumed in the medium that it's made for, but I think people are watching on their phones and at the end of the day, if all you want is a theatrical experience for your film, my personal feeling is that you're making it for you and not for them, right?
Tom Doherty:
Yeah.
Michael Sugar:
We should be making it for the people and I understand that you want to exhibit your film in its best possible version-
Tom Doherty:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Michael Sugar:
... but that doesn't mean that something that is made for television isn't impactful and meaningful and audiences will devour it.
Tom Doherty:
Oh yeah. Just as an educator, just the utter convenience where a student, if he's interested in Alfred Hitchcock can watch six Alfred Hitchcock movies over the weekend and so it really does have that very powerful educational aspect to it. What I miss, though, and I think your generation had this in the '90s is that experience of, go to the movie theater together. I think we had screenings in Wasserman at the time and you'd all trek that are together, see it together, then trek back. You're talking about the movie for that entire experience, it's sometimes very difficult getting students to say, to sit down, even at their computer for 90 minutes of uninterrupted viewing where they don't have their cell phone or whatever. So on the one hand, it's really a terrific educational enhancement that they have and then you can just put up the movies on our LATTE page at Brandeis or streaming. But if there's one thing I miss is that shared communal experience of when they come in the next Wednesday, you know everybody's loaded for bear to talk about the film.
Michael Sugar:
Right.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah.
Michael Sugar:
But you miss that, but I'm not sure they miss that. I just think-
Tom Doherty:
That's because they've I've never had it.
Michael Sugar:
Right. Well, no, actually not. I think it's because they have it, but it's just in a different form and that's what's driving the binge watch of Netflix or Amazon. The conversation is still happening; it's just not happening on the walk to and from the theater. It's happening on Twitter and Instagram and it's happening in real time over texts. So it's, certainly, a very different way to experience the conversation, but I think the conversation still happens and I think it's what's driving successful content. I don't mean to be contrarian with my answers.
Tom Doherty:
No, no. That's one of the things that was always great... Your colleagues in the class... you can always come back and even if you were wrong, would listen to you.
Michael Sugar:
Look, what do I know? But I just feel like-
Tom Doherty:
Yeah what do you know?
Michael Sugar:
But I think the conversation is still very present and that's my that's my beef with purist only, has to be movie theater. No, I make movies. I want people to see in the theater, I work with filmmakers and I completely embrace their desire for those movies to be seen that way. But I think that it is a disconnect from reality to think that a 20-year-old student is not having that conversation. It's on TikTok and they're quoting it or it's on Twitter and they're tweeting about it. When I have movies or shows coming out.
Michael Sugar:
I don't look at Rotten Tomatoes mostly because it hurts my feelings, but also because I don't think it's a real measure. The measure is I look at what people are saying on Twitter and how people are experiencing it after the fact and that's the immediate response and it's a shared response is actually more present than it was without social media and without that opportunity. So if you go on Twitter right now and type in A Quiet Place, you're going to see thousands of people talking about, "I just went. It was amazing. How has the theater?" So it is still a shared experience; it's just a different way.
Tom Doherty:
We got some questions coming in for you here.
Michael Sugar:
Sure.
Tom Doherty:
Let's see, from Michael, "What projects are you working on now? Which ones are you most excited about?"
Michael Sugar:
Well, we have Worth coming out on Netflix in the fall. This is the Ken Feinberg story, who is the special master of the 9/11 Commission, a really amazing human and Michael Keaton plays him. So that'll come out. It's not, we haven't announced the date, but it will be September, October and we're really excited that the Obamas came on to that to work with us. So they'll be involved in promoting that and having conversations about that movie. We're shooting the third season of our Apple show, Dickinson, right now. We're excited about a series of documentaries we're doing with Time Magazine about the most impactful events of 2020 that we're doing with world-class folks like Trevor Noah and LeBron James and Jose Andres and Angelina Jolie and others. So we're excited about that. That'll be around at the end of the year.
Michael Sugar:
We have a bunch of stuff that'll probably happen on our podcasts. We're very excited about Time Person of the Week. We have a number of scripted podcasts that are dropping soon. We're excited about our books that are coming out, which is our first one is The First Shots by Brendan Borrell, which is a deep exploration of an embedded journalist inside of Operation Warp Speed. There's a lot of things coming out and probably we're at the mercy of so many people about when something will happen. But I also think the Hulk Hogan movie that we're doing, which is an exploration of a fallen hero, the ascent and fall and reascent of a hero through the lens of Hulk Hogan, which is really exciting. Chris Hemsworth is going to play him, so that's teetering on a green light. So, we'll see.
Tom Doherty:
You've answered this a little bit, but there's a question about how the pandemic affected the business and where do you think the business is going post-pandemic?
Michael Sugar:
Well, obviously, the pandemic affected the business immensely because production came to a halt and then it only slowly came back and it's still only about to peak again. But I think the bad news was everything stopped. I think the good news is, because there was now a flood of the queue was much longer and deeper, I think the material that will find its way to the top is going to be better because there's been a buildup of opportunity for the financiers to pick from. So I expect that the new crop of movies and TV are going to be better by virtue of that pandemic. I think, really, the best thing, maybe this is too idealistic, but I think a lot of people say they became human again, right?
Michael Sugar:
The entertainment industry, like so many other industries, devours people's humanity with the time it sucks from them and the obligations and I think I've heard a lot of people say that just remembering things that mattered, family and spending more time at home and creating a truer work-life balance. I think that's a positive impact, not just in the entertainment industry, but across the world. I hope so. For me, it certainly was. I think that informs the quality of storytelling. It informs the quality of products that are released in other industries, because if it's not infused with some sense of humanity, it probably won't connect with humanity, so ...
Tom Doherty:
Can I ask you, since you got a background, of course, you're in a global industry, you've got a background in international relations, just say a little something about China and the censorship that China exerts on the motion picture industry. There's a lot of conversation about that. Just today, I read that the Chinese government is now censoring Hong Kong's cinema for purposes of national security.
Michael Sugar:
Right.
Tom Doherty:
Where do you think that's going, because China does exert a kind of censorship control over a lot of Hollywood content it seems?
Michael Sugar:
For sure. They don't exert control over the creative, they exert control over the distribution of it, right? So that's the problem for so many of our stories is that if they don't check certain boxes for the Chinese government, we just don't see an audience so much so that when we make a deal with a studio now, and they calculate worldwide box office, China is separate. It's the wild card because you have a tent-pole movie here that can do $200 million domestically that does nothing in China for the same reasons you mentioned. There was a movie, I think two years ago, I can't remember what it was called, but it was a movie that was an abysmal failure here in the States and it made like $70 million in China because they pick the product and there's just not so much.
Michael Sugar:
So it's an interesting thing to see and I don't know. Look, we're in a weird political climate. I think it'd be a very meaningful audience for us to be able to deliver product to, like any industry, but it's unclear where it's going. I do see a lot of Chinese money coming into Hollywood and I think the good news is that's good for Hollywood, but also think that will create more influence inside of China because like Jack Ma and Alibaba was really one of the only arbiters there for a long, long time. He's been a bit disintermediated now and we'll see. But if there's more Chinese influence here to bring it back there, maybe we can plow through it a bit.
Tom Doherty:
Right. There's a question here, a practical one about, "What are your tips for pitching projects?"
Michael Sugar:
Know your audience, know your product, be succinct, study the market.
Tom Doherty:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Michael Sugar:
You don't want to pick something that's already been pitched. You don't want to pitch something that couldn't work in the market. You want to make sure you're pitching to the right person. You want to be sure that that person has the ability to give you good advice, because there's a lot of bad advice, so know your audience.
Tom Doherty:
What filmmakers do you find most exciting today? Who do you like to work with in the business?
Michael Sugar:
Wow, there's so many. I really love Taika Waititi. I want to work with him. I haven't yet. I work with so many great filmmakers. I've been working with Cary Fukunaga since he was at NYU in 2005 and to see him go from Sin Nombre, a beautiful, intimate Spanish language movie to directing James Bond, which will come out this fall. I've really enjoyed watching his evolution. We worked together on True Detective and we also did a show, Maniac, together, so I think he's world-class. I love Soderbergh. I've been working with Steven for a long, long time.
Michael Sugar:
For me, what I'm attracted to with storytellers is folks that are willing to take risks and whose body of work is differentiated project to project. The greats, if you took the top 10 other than a few like maybe Quintin Tarantino and West, you don't necessarily automatically know it's the same person. Peter Jackson's movies look different, his early movies than his later movies. Chris Nolan's movies have a similar quality, but they're different canvases; Spielberg, Soderbergh, these guys and Patty Jenkins from Monster to Wonder Woman. There's I'm interested in artists that tell the right story for the palette, for the canvas they're working on and not just doing the same thing over and over again.
Tom Doherty:
Fair enough. I wanted to make sure you saw the previous one. Oh, "How did Brandeis, specifically, influence your filmmaking?"
Michael Sugar:
Ah, good question. Well, Tom Doherty, obviously you were a huge impact in the affirmation of my instinct that this was where I wanted to go. Like you said, those moments of discovery, we were a really unique group of people inside of a university. We kind of traveled in a pack, class to class.
Tom Doherty:
I remember when you guys came to the final exam.
Michael Sugar:
See, I don't even remember that, but-
Tom Doherty:
You don't remember that?
Michael Sugar:
Is that the one that I was really drunk for or a different one? I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Tom Doherty:
No, you guys all came in tuxes and evening wear. So the women came in evening wear; the guys came in tuxes and you opened up champagne before the final exam.
Michael Sugar:
Yeah, that sounds right.
Tom Doherty:
But, of course, I stopped the drinking in finals.
Michael Sugar:
I would say, good, good. Obviously, a good university experience impacts anyone's career because it creates perspective and it creates relationships and it creates learning and a thirst for learning. I think it creates conviction, right? I think, Tom, you said earlier that teaching film is different than teaching accounting. The reason is people that are studying film already love it, usually. Then people that are studying biology or chemistry or other things, they will fall in love with it or they won't and if they fall in love with it, it creates that conviction. So for me, that was the great takeaway, but also, incredible network of Brandeis alumni in Hollywood. That was very helpful to me and we all try to return the favor now. I hear from Brandeis students all the time and I guess what else, got me into law school, so that helped too.
Tom Doherty:
I think what a lot of people say is that, at least people in the business like yourself and Mike Mayer and other folks, that the good, broad liberal arts education prepares you for a lot of different things, that if you know how to think, you know how to tell a story that you've got a good background in cultural history, that it tends to be able to help you recognize a good project to connect with an audience and just to be able to read a text for meaning and to, hopefully, communicate it to an audience. Earlier, somebody asked how I felt when you got the Oscar. Since I've been at Brandeis, I've learned this Yiddish word, nachas, which is for the non-conversant is the feeling, typically, a parent feels to his child of pride.
Tom Doherty:
So I felt that, of course. But the other thing I felt was I was not surprised. That entire class I knew were accomplished people who would go on to do things that made them happy and that would contribute to the world. So the emotion that one didn't feel was surprise. I have a couple other questions here, as we start getting ready to close up.let me just see. Here's a practical question again, "Does your company consider pitches from people without agents that could fit the profile of movies you produce, creative non-fiction regarding, for example, World War II?"
Michael Sugar:
Well, that's a lot of questions. We don't accept, for legal reasons, because there's just so much incoming, but I do from Brandeis family. So that is a connective tissue that if you're in this room, I think you can use with us. But generally speaking, first of all, we just have so much incoming that has already been curated by agents and managers and lawyers, so that helps us with quality control of the incoming flow, we get a lot. But also, I would argue that having a representative is good for you on the approach side, because we are honest brokers and deal well and I think most people are, actually.
Michael Sugar:
But it's just good for you to have another person or people in the mix that can look at your work and give you a reality check because you really don't get two chances with people. Asking someone to take an hour-and-a-half of their time to read a script from a stranger, that's just like what if somebody knocked on your door and said, "Hey, I know you're busy, but let's go sit for an hour-and-a-half and have a conversation." It's a commitment, so you want to make sure that when you approach people, you're putting your best foot forward. So the advice part of it is, do that. The practical answer, can we talk? You can find me.
Tom Doherty:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's good to know. Oh, it says from Michael, "I used to love BTV back in the day. I know your team got together for a reunion some years ago. Any chance of another reunion show?"
Michael Sugar:
It's funny you say that, I would love to do it. I think it was David Heller who started posting all of these old videos, which it was really kind of embarrassing, some of them. But no, we loved that. That was a great experience. I don't know. The question is, can we get the same money as the Friends Reunion got? If we can get it, and I probably think that Marta Ravin and the gang will get that together. But look, it was a really fun experience to do that for us. I don't know what's happening if that still exists at the school. I hope it does, but it was one of my favorite things that I did there.
Tom Doherty:
Let me ask you a little bit more about what's going on today in the motion picture industry. Of course, one of the revolutions that's happened concurrent with the pandemic is the whole Me Too Movement. Has that, in any way, affected your sense of the projects, the protocols of filmmaking?
Michael Sugar:
It hasn't affected our protocols because I feel that we've always been really aware of these issues and we haven't had them arise in our own orbit directly. It affects the transactional nature of the business in so far as we're always more cognizant about making sure we have diversity in our projects. We're more cognizant about having equal gender representation as possible. If it's a story about women, we should have a woman director or try to find one. This is not even necessarily a response; it's more like that makes sense. You should use people that are best equipped to tell the story. At the same time, I think that it's really important for people to remember that I'm a Jew who made Spotlight.
Michael Sugar:
Today, people would say, I think, "Well, is this right?" Like people should be able to tell meaningful stories with elegance. That's, to me, the biggest challenge of art is going beyond your comfort zone and learning something. So I fear that the pendulum swing too far could be the enemy of creativity, but I think where it has come largely has been very important in terms of protecting all the rights and dignities of people that have been poorly treated and that is something that we've seen a lot of, so.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah, I think of that, when I was watching the other night, the Ben Kingsley, Gandhi, which is this amazing performance of this British actor as Gandhi, as somebody who's not. The thrill sometimes of watching those things is seeing one identity transform into another. But I don't know if you could make Gandhi today without casting an Indian actor, and that thrill of transformation, or William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman, playing the gay individual. I wonder if that's a moment that's just gone in film history, that sense of seeing somebody transform into somebody else that they're not.
Michael Sugar:
It's definitely a thing right now. I don't know if it's gone forever. Look, I also understand the other argument though, which is that, there's also millions of, or probably thousands of brilliant Indian actors that could play Gandhi. I get both sides of the equation and we're, obviously, conscious of that, but we are in a time where that is constantly part of the conversation.
Tom Doherty:
I think we've got room for maybe one more question here. Somebody is curious about how you decide which project goes to which streaming platform?
Michael Sugar:
Well, my company has a deal at Netflix, so that's where we go first on the movie side and on the television side where we have even more robust relationship with them. But, obviously, Disney has its own very clear brand. I think Hulu and Amazon, HBO Max and Netflix have a lot of overlap in some ways. We usually go to all of them and we sell it to whoever wants to make it, or whoever wants to make it in the best possible way. So, but I personally spent a lot of time at Netflix because I've been involved with them since House of Cards and from the jump and they've been hugely supportive of me and my partners and my company, so ...
Tom Doherty:
Mike, I see Ron has popped up here on the Zoom Brady Bunch menu and I just want to thank you for this. It's been a pleasure. I hope we can do it again.
Michael Sugar:
Thank you.
Tom Doherty:
You've been, as usual, very eloquent and informative.
Ron Liebowitz:
I have jumped in here and I do want to thank both of you. That was a terrific conversation and one that, of course, is not only interesting. Oh, we now have a fire alarm going off here. I have to apologize, so I'm going to have to sign off a little bit faster, but I just want to thank both of you guys and also congratulate you, Michael.
Tom Doherty:
Thank you.
Ron Liebowitz:
I'm going to head out. Okay. So long, everyone. Thank you for joining us at this Brandeis alumni event. Bye-bye.
Michael Sugar:
Bye, old friends.
Ron Liebowitz:
Bye-bye.
Tom Doherty:
Bye, Ron.
Ron Liebowitz:
Great timing.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah, great timing. Hey, Mike, thanks. We'll keep in touch.
Michael Sugar:
My pleasure.
Tom Doherty:
It's really great connecting with you again and I'll see you in LA, I hope, once the world opens up, or you in Boston. Next time you do a Boston-accented film, you're going to have to come here.
Michael Sugar:
For sure. Tom Brady movie.
Tom Doherty:
Yeah. Oh, now that might not do well here, but likely kill in Florida. Take Care.
Michael Sugar:
All right. Bye, everyone. Thank you.
Tom Doherty:
All right, bye.