In 2016, a bidding war erupted over the film rights to journalist David Grann’s next book. That year, a James Gray adaptation of Grann’s The Lost City of Z starring Charlie Hunnam was generating strong pre-release buzz, and dealmakers around town were devouring early copies of his upcoming true-crime thriller Killers of the Flower Moon. Paramount offered up $2 million and J.J. Abrams as a director, and Netflix one-upped them with a $3 million bid, according to sources who spoke to THR. Sony and George Clooney went in on a pitch together. But it was a relatively new and unproven studio, Imperative Entertainment, that walked away with a deal. The $5 million that Imperative offered surely helped, but cofounder Bradley Thomas says that wasn’t what sealed the deal. “Our pitch to David was, ‘Look, we’re not going to buy a lot of things, but we’re going to focus all our energy on bringing this to fruition,’” says Thomas.
How prescient that promise turned out to be. As we all now know, it took seven years, a major rewrite, a reported $200 million, a studio change, and a pandemic before Martin Scorsese’s three-hour-26-minute epic hit theaters last year. The Apple TV+ film has earned praise for its sensitive portrayal of a grim era in Osage Nation history and picked up 10 Oscar nominations, even as it’s inspired think-pieces about whether its box office performance—nearly $157 million worldwide—can be considered a success.
At Imperative Entertainment, there’s no debate. Killers is exactly the kind of film that billionaire businessman Dan Friedkin hoped to make when he first teamed up with veteran film producer Thomas a decade ago. (VF spoke to Thomas before the sudden death of his wife, the documentary producer Isabelle Thomas.) Killers is a calling card of sorts for the company, proof that when they say they’ll do anything to get a movie made, they mean it. “Imperative were solidly behind us all the way,” Scorsese tells me over email. Not only did they secure the rights to the book, later bringing on writer Eric Roth, Scorsese, and Leonardo DiCaprio. They also made early overtures to Geoffrey Standing Bear, principal chief of the Osage Nation, helping pave the way for the close relationship Scorsese would form with the community during filming. “They supported all of our logistical and creative decisions, from shooting in Osage County to shifting the focus of the narrative to the relationship between Ernst and Mollie,” he says. “Imperative was an invaluable and supportive partner.”
Hollywood is awash with producers with big designs and even bigger bank accounts. Little Miss Sunshine producer David T. Friendly has dubbed the upper echelon of them the “billionheirs,” writing in a column for Puck that the industry works “like most high-stakes poker games, if you bring enough cash, we’ll happily pull up a chair.” Friedkin, who inherited one of the world’s largest Toyota distributors, is worth $6.2 billion, according to Forbes. But the 10-year-old company has also earned a reputation for tenacity.
In 2017, for instance, Sony was six weeks away from the release of Imperative-produced Getty family thriller All the Money in the World from director Ridley Scott when multiple people accused star Kevin Spacey of sexual misconduct. (Spacey denied the allegations.) “There were posters around town,” Thomas says. “I remember casually saying, ‘I wish we could just cut him out.’ And Dan said, ‘Well, why can’t we?’” They drove to Scott’s house, where Thomas recalls the director telling him, “I can do it.” With the support of the studio, they recast Spacey with Christopher Plummer, brought the entire cast back for reshoots, and still hit their December 18 release date. “Bradley is a great diplomat,” Scott tells VF. “When he sees a problem, he tends to walk toward it and chat with it before it gets near you.” In spite of the hiccups, he says it was “probably my best experience making a movie.”
That decision, like the one to support Scorsese’s plan to film Killers in Oklahoma, which significantly increased the film’s budget, “represent things that we stand for,” says Friedkin in a rare interview. “It’s really to be part of something,” he adds. “It’s about creating something that can sit on a bookshelf, something that our grandkids and other generations are proud of.”
Growing up, Friedkin dreamed of becoming a filmmaker. “I spliced little Super 8 films together—that were awful, by the way—and made my family watch,” he recalls. The hobby may have had a little something to do with his father, Thomas Friedkin, who when he wasn’t running Gulf States Toyota, moonlighted as a movie stunt pilot. But eventually, reality beckoned. Friedkin studied business at Georgetown University, earned a master’s in finance from Rice University and, in 1995, took over the family business.
He still harbored hopes of one day working in entertainment, so it was fortuitous when his friend, Casamigos cofounder Mike Meldman, introduced him to Thomas on a golf course in Mexico. The billionaire quickly bonded with Thomas—who spent much of his career producing such Farrelly brothers films as Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary—over their mutual love of Lawrence of Arabia. By the 10th hole, they had decided to go into business together. “I was envious of someone who was actually living that creative dream,” Friedkin says. “Of course, I knew nothing about all the work that goes into it.”
For Thomas, there was something appealing about being able to operate outside of the traditional studio system, to take risks on stories that excited him, and to find ways to get them made. “I had spent a lot of time and been reasonably lucky as far as getting stuff made, but I felt there was a better way,” he says.
With Friedkin’s support, Imperative has the capital to acquire projects at the IP stage, as they did with Killers. They also have the flexibility to finance a project themselves or partner with a studio. But Friedkin’s involvement runs deeper than just his bank account. “He’s the best wingman you could have on a movie,” Thomas says. It’s an apt description of his friend, who shares his father’s love of aviation and even piloted his vintage Spitfire in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. “If you’ve been in this business, you’ve seen people with money come into town, and more often than not, for the wrong reasons,” Thomas adds. “I can honestly say Dan’s motivation has always been because of his love of this art form.”