Summary SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT With over a decade of work already under their belts, Ken Kao and Josh Rosenbaum are looking to keep their bright streak in Hollywood rolling at Waypoint Entertainment. The production company was first co-founded in 2010 by Kao, quickly getting the ball rolling with 2011's Rampart, the crime drama led by Woody Harrelson and co-written by acclaimed crime novelist James Ellroy.
As the studio forges ahead with its ambitious plans for the future, Screen Rant interviewed co-founder/CEO Ken Kao and Head Executive/Producer Josh Rosenbaum to discuss Waypoint Entertainment's history, how they go about choosing which projects to support, and the current state of the movie industry.
Ken Kao: Since then, I want to say we've had 12 films come out, and we're almost at 10 years now. And yeah, it's been nothing but a great experience even through all the crap that's been thrown at this industry. I think we've kept it lean and mean, and just been able to try to circumnavigate all these issues that are getting thrown everyone's way. And here we are still standing in 2024.
Josh Rosenbaum: No, I think that sums it up really well. Because I get asked this all the time, and it's really annoying to say, "Oh, we're open to everything, all genres, all budgets." Which is true, but I think if you're going to try to distill it down a little bit more, predominantly it's filmmaker driven material, like singular voices with real style, but that's hopefully not getting in the way of the narrative form of the material.
It still has his style, but honestly, Tilman was the dream filmmaker for us because he has so much style, but he's very collaborative, always willing to listen to what we needed to help sell it or whatever. But he always stood firm on his vision for the film.
When it comes to finding the best way to bridge a filmmaker's bold vision with a broad audience appeal, the duo agree that it ultimately comes down to ensuring that the first step to do so is just to get the project greenlit, particularly as both the independent movie marketplace and big studio world are "really tough right now":
Ken Kao: Well, Grant, when I think about how our films, how we work with filmmakers, I think it's a lot of collaboration. And I think collaboration today, to piggy off of Josh's point, I think there's a certain pragmatism, I think, that is required in order to get movies made. And I think that's what Josh was trying to say a little while ago. And I think to find that holy grail intersection of art and commerce.
Renewed Interest In The Nice Guys Both Thrills & Breaks The Duo's Hearts Despite having two A-list actors leading its cast and celebrated filmmaker Shane Black at the helm, The Nice Guys ultimately couldn't overcome its box office competition to be deemed a success, grossing just shy of $63 million against its $50 million production budget.
Funny enough, Joel Silver had reached out to a mutual acquaintance of mine and brought up Nice Guys this past week, and it sparked a conversation about exactly, Grant, what you had just asked. Like, "What would it take, maybe, to get this thing to happen again?" And I think that we just have to make it on a budget. I think that continues to be the producers' challenge and the filmmakers' challenge now.
Kao Says To "Set Your Expectations Pretty High" For The Wolf Man Reboot Amid the projects in the works the studio has is Blumhouse's Wolf Man reboot, which was originally set to star Gosling on a story treatment he created, only for the various behind-the-scenes delays leading to him stepping away, but remaining onboard as an executive producer.
Kao & Rosenbaum Are Thrilled About Waypoint & NEON's Partnership One of the biggest highlights for Kao and Rosenbaum is Waypoint's recent financial partnership with Oscar-winning indie studio NEON, in which the two studios will deliver "a slate of bold, genre-spanning films for savvy theatrical audiences that often get overlooked by studios and streamers.
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