66-Minute Producers Roundtable Talk With Ridley Scott, Jason Blum, More

THR sits down with the producers this week for the newest episode of their “Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter” roundtable. t’s an engaging and enlightening talk featuring Judd Apatow (“The Big Sick”), Seth Rogen (“The Disaster Artist”), Jason Blum (“Get Out”), Amy Pascal (“Molly’s Game”), Ridley Scott (“All the Money in the World”, “Blade Runner 2049”), and Eric Fellner (“Baby Driver”, “Darkest Hour”).

One of the biggest topics discussed at the table, unsurprisingly, include the continued fallout of the Weinstein scandal, with Seth Rogen remarking, “I worked with him once [on ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno‘] a decade ago, and I was like, ‘This is a bad dude. I’m never going to work with him again.’ … And there is kind of a wink and acceptance of that type of behavior.” Picking up on Rogen’s thoughts, Amy Pascal believes, “I don’t think he’s [Weinstein] is an outlier … The women who stood up have to be applauded because that’s really, really hard to do when nobody wants to stand up, and the silence is deafening.”

Speaking on creating mid-range budget movies, Jason Blum notes, “If you pull the price down of the movie … it doesn’t matter who’s in the movie. We made ‘Get Out’ for $4.5 million. Every movie we do is $5 million. It’s great that they’re profitable, but that’s not why we do it.We do it for all the reasons we’re talking about. How do you make edgy, different stuff and not have to cast so-and-s, not have to please so-and-so?”

Ridley Scott, talking about choosing to direct “All The Money in the World,” was quick to call attention to the script, saying, “I can tell within a paragraph whether I’m going to be in good hands or not. By the time I get to page 10, I’m beginning to perspire because I’m thinking, ‘Please don’t drop the ball; please don’t drop the ball.’ Page 30, I’m now beads of perspiration. ‘Holy shit we’re really getting there.’ And so writing is everything. Everything else is dressing.”

Eric Fellner agrees, noting that the “the script was on an iPad … [because] when you got to a scene, you just tapped the header and the music played as you were reading”, which sounds like a fascinating way to read a script.

The entire conversation is fascinating, as the group also dives into Pascal and Rogen’s role in the Sony Hack and how Apatow is able to balance all of the projects he produces. Check out the full video.