Levantine Motion pictures is betting on the queer rom-com “A Good Indian Boy” with a theatrical launch — a gift of confidence in an interval the place rom-coms are generally relegated to streaming platforms.
The film stars “Deadpool” actor Karan Soni as an Indian man who brings his white-orphan-artist boyfriend (carried out by Tony and Grammy winner Jonathan Groff) home to his standard family. When Levantine Motion pictures CEO Benjamin Hung first study Madhuri Shekar’s play, on which the film depends, he acknowledged that the story was “a lot much less about coming out” and additional in regards to the strategy of crossing cultures.
“Ideally, we’re looking for duties that are very uplifting and supplies people hope,” Hung tells Choice about what appealed adequate to make a movie.
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Levantine, the New York-based indie manufacturing and financing agency behind awards darlings like “Hidden Figures” and “Beasts of No Nation,” along with crowd-pleasers like “Blinded by the Delicate” and “Jerry and Marge Go Large,” enlisted Justin Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios to co-finance the film. “Nonetheless we’ve been going into manufacturing with or with out them,” Hung explains.
“A Good Indian Boy” debuted in restricted launch all through the nation on Friday. And no matter opening all through a spring weekend that sees primary studios like Warner Bros. banking on primary IP with “A Minecraft Movie,” and art-house standout Neon’s “Hell of a Summer season” hoping to capitalize on the “Stranger Points” craze, Hung is assured that word-of-mouth will help “A Good Indian Boy” uncover its viewers.
Ahead of the film’s debut, Hung talked about why it felt correct to push for a theatrical launch, the company’s working relationship with Wayfarer Studios and the studios’ goal of accelerating their yearly film output.
When did you first come all through the play and see the potential for a film adaptation?
Charlie McSpadden [VP of development at Levantine] bought right here all through the fiddle 2020. We’re really about compelling tales and characters — considerably ones that are socially conscious or characterize underrepresented segments of society. It checked all the containers.
We labored with writer Madhuri Shekar, who developed it over a two to three-year course of. Halfway into pre-production, Wayfarer Studios, who had been good companions, bought right here in and financed half the film to alleviate a lot of the financial risk. Nonetheless it was really Levantine driving the boat, and we’ve been going into manufacturing with or with out them.
Would Levantine work with Wayfarer Studios as soon as extra?
Correct now, we’ve nothing nevertheless good phrases to say. Beneath the very best circumstances, we would wish to companion with them as soon as extra.
How does ‘A Good Indian Boy’ match into Levantine’s mannequin ethos and the duties you want to make going forward?
As we switch forward, I would love Levantine to not solely scale, however moreover develop [beyond] the genres we’ve traditionally executed. The ethos of the company is premium top quality tales with compelling characters. Interval. In our upcoming slate, we’ve a few utterly totally different genres: an action-adventure film; a sci-fi thriller TV assortment that’s going onto the market in a short time; and a vampire comic e-book TV assortment that’s a little bit of “White Lotus” meets “Emily in Paris.” Subsequent up, we’ve “Poetic License,” Maude Apatow’s directorial debut, that stars Leslie Mann, Cooper Hoffman and Andrew Barth Feldman.
The rom-com is one factor Levantine may not have executed so far, but it surely absolutely’s one which additionally has compelling characters. You’re going to start out out seeing stuff like that from us. Historically, we’ve had spherical one film a 12 months, nevertheless, ideally, I want to get to some or 4.
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Counting on the success of ‘A Good Indian Boy,’ is your long-term goal to spend cash on additional queer-led tales?
It’s all about vary inside the sense of our film slate. We’re attempting to make one factor for everybody. There shall be some that are additional four-quadrant commercially, and there shall be additional queer tales. It may not primarily be like we’ve to hit a quota yearly. It’s going to be very pure. That’s usually what makes for top-of-the-line tales.
Streaming supplies an attention-grabbing dimension to the dialog as studios aren’t releasing many rom-coms in theaters. What parts made you see the potential for ‘A Good Indian Boy’ going theatrical?
We’ve got been approached by a complete lot of companions after South by Southwest. A couple of of those places would put it out, nevertheless then they’re releasing 20 totally different motion pictures with no appropriate dedication to theaters.y
On this specific enterprise, we went the self-distribution route, working with Blue Harbor Leisure, and acknowledged, “You understand what? We’re going to wager on ourselves.” We’re capable of put the extra contact on this from a promoting and advertising and marketing perspective, attain out to all of our friends and companions inside the enterprise and really get behind it.
In the event you watching this movie with one particular person, and even 5, you don’t pretty get the an identical feeling as when you’re surrounded by tons of of people in a theater, and they also’re laughing and crying.
What have been the vital factor demos for promoting and advertising and marketing? Notably understanding that totally different queer rom-coms like “Bros,” didn’t do very successfully on the sector office, what have been some primary challenges?
We’ve been attempting to deal with South Asian markets and a youthful [demos]. We think about that the additional conservative older know-how will hopefully come out from word-of-mouth. Clearly, the LGBTQ+ neighborhood is important, and the Broadway viewers by means of Jonathan Groff.
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Then there’s Zarna Garg, an up-and-comer with a pilot coming out on CBS. She’s executed a complete lot of stand-up specials and has resonated with older Caucasian girls. That has been really beautiful as we’ve hit the pageant circuit, significantly the Palm Springs Worldwide Film Pageant.
We nonetheless think about this generally is a four-quadrant film. Getting of us in theaters is the troublesome issue attributable to promoting and advertising and marketing a queer rom-com. Nonetheless saying, “Hey, that may be very very like ‘Meet the Mom and father’” helps. The playability could also be very extreme. The vital factor to our promoting and advertising and marketing advertising and marketing marketing campaign has been concentrating on the very best theaters for our primary viewers.
Since premiering ultimately 12 months’s SXSW, what was the approach to maintain momentum?
After SXSW, we started evaluating what we wished to do with the film. It took a few months to find out it out, as we’ve been working with totally different partnerships; it was a collective effort to think about inside the movie.
We had a superb pageant approach, hitting explicit areas like NewFest and the London Film Pageant. The best issue to do on the pageant circuit is purpose with out over-saturating the market. We started to get a couple of of those evaluations in and to get a complete lot of publicity, nevertheless we’ve been attempting to take care of that run. Director Roshan Sethi and all the experience have been implausible. They’ve been doing regardless of they’ll to place it up on the market.
With the current state of the world and assault on queer and trans rights, do you assume the long term in queer storytelling is in extra optimistic rom-coms like ‘A Good Indian Boy’ and ‘The Bridal ceremony Banquet’?
As soon as we study the play, one in every of many fascinating points is that the principle goal is way much less about coming out and additional about meeting anyone and introducing them to your family members and utterly totally different cultures. Ideally, we’re looking for duties that are very uplifting and supplies people hope. 89% of our focus is that this ‘uplifting positivity’ beat, however when there’s one factor else that we want to do, we acquired’t rule it out.
Levantine has had motion pictures like ‘Hidden Figures’ which have been nominated for Oscars, nevertheless have been moreover a area office success. Shifting forward, is Levantine attempting to lean additional into commercially viable duties or awards motion pictures? Or a mix of every?
“Hidden Figures” was sort of the correct storm, checking all the containers. Nonetheless I imagine by scaling and having portfolio, you presumably can have a mix of every, so that you simply simply’re worthwhile with additional enterprise motion pictures to cowl a lot of the awards motion pictures that won’t be as worthwhile.
If we hit a “Hidden Figures” as soon as extra, superior! However once we make a film that we really wished to make that wasn’t as commercially viable or financially worthwhile, we’ve totally different duties too.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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