MIKE DE LUCA<\/a> <\/strong>I thought, \u201cWell, this was a big mistake. It looks like they financed porno films here.\u201d It was barely an office. It was a really small operation. And then I got to know all the people, and they were all film enthusiasts and lovers of movies.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tThe future executive partners met while working on the 1998 feature Living Out Loud. Says Abdy: \u201cWe\u2019re both Italian. We both love food. Both grew up on the East Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Subject<\/p>\n
\n\tLong before <\/strong>Sinners<\/strong>, you were criticized for giving big deals. That goes all the way back to Jim Carrey in the \u201990s?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA<\/strong> Nothing\u2019s changed. They were mean in the \u201990s, they\u2019re mean now. We paid Jim Carrey nothing for The Mask; I think he got a quarter of a million dollars. It was testing well, and everyone in town knew it, so Jim was getting offers of $2, $3, $4 million before The Mask came out. And then Ace Ventura came out, and the numbers started to solidify at $5 million. We had Dumb and Dumber. He had another offer for another movie \u2014 and we offered $7 million. To the town, it looked like I took him from a quarter of a million dollars to $7 million. So it was like, \u201cOh, he\u2019s ruining the business!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tYou bet on Paul Thomas Anderson last year with One Battle After Another, just as you did early in his career starting with 1997\u2019s Boogie Nights and 1999\u2019s Magnolia. Did that first one feel like a gamble, considering how long its runtime was?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>I actually advocated for it to be a little longer and have a disco intermission. And Paul\u2019s like, \u201cNo, we\u2019re not doing the disco.\u201d There\u2019s a whole section of that movie he cut out that nobody has seen that I thought was really brilliant.<\/p>\n\n\tYou had a string of hits but then hit a slow patch in 2000, including <\/strong>Little Nicky<\/strong>, and co-founder Bob Shaye fired you. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>Bob and I had just had enough of each other. He met me when I was 19, and for my 16-year history at that company, I was all like, \u201cI built this place and you don\u2019t appreciate it!\u201d And he was like, \u201cWe made you and you don\u2019t appreciate it!\u201d And it was just so tired that by the time I had a few flops, they were all looking for a way to get me out the door.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tPam Abdy and Mike De Luca <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Christopher Patey<\/p>\n
\n\tYou got out before AOL took over but also before you got to enjoy the success of <\/strong>The<\/strong> Lord of the Rings<\/strong> trilogy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>I had stock options in New Line. When AOL bought the studio, it shot up before it came plunging down. When they fired me, my business manager was like, \u201cYou should diversify.\u201d So he got me out at $70 a share. After I left, the stock plunged to $2. Everybody at Warners and New Line got wiped out. Bob and I had lunch a year later to do the man hug and pat on the back and be like, \u201cI love you.\u201d And he goes, \u201cI\u2019ve got to thank you for Lord of the Rings. You annoyed me so much and made me feel like I wasn\u2019t in charge of my own company that I knew I had to throw down on something that was just me [denying De Luca credit], and that\u2019s how we got Lord of the Rings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tSo I said, \u201cI have to thank you too because had you not fired me, I would have been wiped out also, but thanks to diversifying after you fired me, I have a nest egg.\u201d Then he got rich again anyway by investing in Tesla, because that\u2019s how it rolls for people like Bob Shaye.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow did the two of you [De Luca and Abdy] meet?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tABDY <\/strong>In the \u201990s, when I was at Jersey as an assistant, Jersey was producing a film at New Line when Mike was president called Living Out Loud, and we met in the editing room and became friends back then. We just had a shared love of stories and movies and filmmakers. We\u2019re both Italian. We both love food. Both grew up on the East Coast. Had a lot in common.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tPam Abdy<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Christopher Patey<\/p>\n
\n\tMike, in January 2020, you were hired as chairman at MGM, and you reached out to Pam to be your partner. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>I thought, \u201cMGM is an interesting case study.\u201d You\u2019ve got a franchise or two [with Bond and Creed]. The whole idea behind the phrase \u201ctentpole,\u201d when Hollywood came up with it, was the pole holds the tent up. The other movies are the tent. Then studios just became all pole, no tent. So I\u2019m like, \u201cI want to put the \u2018tent\u2019 back in \u2018tentpole\u2019 at MGM.\u201d Pam agreed to do the job with me.<\/p>\n\n\tABDY <\/strong>We went to work there under the craziest circumstances with COVID, building a studio again from scratch, really.<\/p>\n\n\tYou made PTA\u2019s <\/strong>Licorice Pizza<\/strong>, which became MGM\u2019s first best picture Oscar nominee in 33 years. Soon after, you two headed to Warners. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>When Amazon came in, their desire to integrate MGM into Prime Video and the way that they would adjudicate what\u2019s theatrical and what\u2019s streaming \u2014 we didn\u2019t think that was a good fit for us. So, we were going to go produce together, and then on the way to figuring out where we wanted to do that, David Zaslav called.<\/p>\n\n\tThere are some early Warners misses: <\/strong>Mickey 17<\/strong>, which you inherited, and <\/strong>Joker 2<\/strong>, which you greenlit. In March 2025, Bloomberg reported that Zaslav was interviewing replacements \u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong> The town is so mean. \u2026 The pearl-clutching that went on because we made a couple of original movies with Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan and Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio for less than the industry average of what a movie costs most studios, certainly tentpole movies, it seems so silly. When we got a 60,000-foot view, it seemed like, \u201cOh, this feels like it\u2019s about the clickbait industry, and we know those algorithms are driven by negativity.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tMike De Luca<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Christopher Patey<\/p>\n
\n\tBut you\u2019re human beings \u2014 it has to affect you to some degree.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tABDY <\/strong>Yes, we\u2019re human. We have feelings like everybody. But we\u2019re professionals and we have a lot of people that work for us. So he and I have to show up every day as leaders. We have a job to do.<\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>By the way, we called everybody who was rumored to be up for our job, and they were like, \u201cNot only did we not get a call for your job, we don\u2019t want your job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tSinners<\/strong> and <\/strong>Coogler<\/strong>\u2018s rights reversion deal drove some of that pearl-clutching. Was that a hard deal to make?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tABDY <\/strong>This movie was about Black ownership. It was specific to this movie. Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan walked in the door with a commercial film that spoke to us on the page emotionally.<\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>What doesn\u2019t get reported is: Everything that we bid on and won, there was a runner-up bidder that was right there and about to do what we did. We just did it faster.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tOne Battle After Another (left) and Sinners mark the first time in decades that one studio has the two clear best picture frontrunners.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEli Ad\u00e9\/Warner Bros.; Courtesy of Warner Bros.<\/p>\n
\n\tYou guys just extended your contract in October. Can you walk me through the thought process, given that Warners is being acquired? [<\/strong>Editor\u2019s note: This conversation took place before Paramount emerged as the surprise victor over Netflix in the bidding war.<\/strong>] <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA<\/strong> At our level, we\u2019re kind of kept cocooned from the corporate shenanigans. It\u2019s so far above our pay grades that we find out about most things when it\u2019s reported in the press. The business units are on a need-to-know basis, which is good for everybody because it helps tamp down leaks and speculation and the snark industrial complex.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDe Luca (left) and Abdy (far right) with Sinners producers Sev Ohanian, Zinzi Coogler and Ryan Coogler, to whom they presented a key to the studio.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDavid Jon\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tFor the first time in 51 years, since Paramount had <\/strong>The Godfather Part II<\/strong> and <\/strong>Chinatown<\/strong>, one studio has not only the two most nominated films but the two clear frontrunners for best picture. How are you approaching this unusual problem of having two films up against each other? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tABDY <\/strong>I cried sitting on the couch listening to all the nominations for the talent. Mike and I talked to every single one of them.<\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>To call [Sinners\u2018] Delroy Lindo and say, \u201cDude, overdue and congratulations,\u201d or [Weapons\u2018] Amy Madigan, 40 years between nominations? These were incredible phone calls.<\/p>\n\n\tABDY <\/strong>There\u2019s nothing like it. At the end of the day, we shut the door and we gave each other a hug and we got emotional. It\u2019s easy to get caught up in the hecticness and the chaos and all of it. And for both of us, in our 30-year friendship, to take a moment and appreciate that this time has happened, I will forever feel grateful, no matter what happens.<\/p>\n\n\tDE LUCA <\/strong>There are other people in town that feel this way, and certainly our friend and colleague, Donna Langley at Universal, feels this way: After the pandemic, we were like, \u201cIf you build it, they will come.\u201d There\u2019s a whole other faction that\u2019s like, \u201cThey\u2019re not coming. Don\u2019t build it.\u201d And we\u2019re like, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to build it.\u201d The fact that audiences showed up for these movies meant the world to us because it means we can continue trying to do it.<\/p>\n\n\tThis story appeared in the March 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hollywood history is filled with stories of studio moguls with roller-coaster careers, but none have had a journey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[4648,434,18,117,19,17,174685,23509,7012,16006,174686,14781],"class_list":["post-380083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-awards","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mike-de-luca","tag-one-battle-after-another","tag-oscars","tag-oscars-2026","tag-pam-abdy","tag-sinners"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116212429295201290","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}