Jaxxon Pierce (Stephen Dorff), his son, now controls and manufactures his fathers once-benevolent dream.
Society has been entirely perverted by the supremacy of the drug, whose true origins are shrouded in mystery.
Two mysterious brothers (Moises Arias and Jason Genao) arrive with a plan to abduct the mogul.
Stephen Dorff in ‘Divinity’
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What is the motivation behind that?
I end up hearing about people from other people.
Thats how I met Greg and weve worked onThe Daytripperstogether.
My connection with Eddie is another example of that kind of serendipity.
And so Eddie and I went to lunch at Musso and Frank and started talking.
Its always fun to help but it didnt emerge from some purely altruistic place.
Its just kind of been by accident.
What has having this throw in of support meant to you, especially at this stage of your career?
DEADLINE:So how does your relationship work?
So taking a step back and just rethinking the process and trying to feel whats natural.
But theres also a big, big weight on my shoulders to see to it, No.
SODERBERGH:Yeah, like he said, its pretty random.
In the case ofDivinity, I just reached out and asked, What are you doing?
And he described a few projects.
I didnt even have to read it.
So he just started working on it and I would see things occasionally.
Its important to have people be confident in their ability to execute the vision.
Theres nobody to teach you that; youre just in the deep end every day.
DEADLINE:Steven, what interested you aboutDivinity?
If Id seen this, I would have been very happy.
Watching it evolve and then seeing the final version was akin to seeingEl Topofor the first time.
Ive never seen anything like that.
ALCAZAR:The comeback of the midnight movie.
Its almost like a fever dream.
Thats what was fun about watchingDivinityevolve, and it really did evolve.
He would shoot for a while, he would stop, hed shoot some more, hed stop.
Hed put stuff together.
You know, it changed.
Thats the kind of freedom that you’re able to have when youre working at this level.
I was fascinated to watch that process as well.
Bigger is not always better at solving a creative problem.
In low budget [projects], context forces you to think laterally instead of vertically.
And when the solution to a problem is not throwing money at it, thats when things get creative.
What does the future of indie filmmaking look like?
What I would like to see andTaylor Swifts premierewas an example is more fluidity in terms of exhibition.
We live in an almost exclusively digital world now in terms of exhibition.
So that means these theaters have access, basically to almost any movie thats ever been made.
What Taylor Swift did was interesting; she went straight to the theaters and she cut everybody else out.
We tried to do that onLogan LuckyandUnsaneand we were able to do it.
Taylor Swift isnt spending any money on a marketing department; shes just her.
This is a new development in terms of the selling of a movie thats going into theaters.
Itd be great if we experienced over the next six to nine months a wave of independent films.
Twenty years ago, independent films took up a lot more market share than they do currently.
It would be nice to see a resurgence.
But it also it also just comes down to filmmakers.
DEADLINE:Eddie, why was important to you thatDivinitybe watched on the big screen?
ALCAZAR:I made the film for the theaters with the biggest possible screen.
Thats where I fell in love with films.
Making something that is big cinematic with the sound and the visuals is exciting to me the immersive experience.
But most most things these days just land on streaming and thats successful for a lot of folks.
They respect the cinematic experience.
DEADLINE:What can help bring the indie market back to the forefront?
Theyre more interested in whos in it ultimately.
The problem we have right now is theres no middle.
Youve got sort of the fantasy spectacle big-budget movies, then youve got the sort of specialty films.
Occasionally, one will break out.
The river doesnt flow in that direction.
It will take somebody deciding they want to support a young filmmaker and really back their vision.
To see a real wave of that kind of support would be transformative.
ALCAZAR:The Hollywood system has become so corporate.
How has this changed the industry?
It costs so much money to create awareness to penetrate through to a potential audience member thats a problem.
ALCAZAR:What one Marvel movie costs could fund maybe 100 indies likeDivinity?
Wouldnt it be a good decision to diversify?
Its an interesting study for somebody to do.
Theres a psychological block.
In the decision to spend large amounts of marketing on films that dont cost much money.
Psychologically, they have a problem with that.
It seems weird and wrong to them.
Its just really hard for them to wrap their minds around that.
They operate on a different scale, as do the theaters and mainstream exhibitors.
The fact of the matter is, the Metrograph Theater in New York, thats a good business.
So the question is, how do you scale that business?
How do you have a Metrograph Theater or the equivalent in every major college town in the U.S.?
We need to start thinking about profit without thinking about obscene profit.
ALCAZAR:I find that the word independent is a little blurry.
I knowFerrariis technically an independent film but I dont see howDivinityandFerrariare in the same category.
Maybe theres a new word that needs to come out for what were doing.
Its not as binary as people want to make it seem.
DEADLINE:Steven, are there any other filmmakers youre working with?
SODERBERGH: Theres a movie that Im producing that is editing right now.
Its the feature film debut of Rachael Holder, whos made some wonderful and funny shorts and web series.
Andre Holland had this script with Rachael attached to direct.
When Andre and I spoke on the phone, he was agitated.
So I asked, Well, what are we talking about here?
What kind of scale?
They should just be saying yes, and not giving him a hard time.
Which is, to be able to make that situation happen and give this filmmaker an opportunity.
Theres nothing in my life that I want that I dont have.
I dont need a boat.
I dont need homes in the South of France.
What I like to do with whatever resources I have is to see stuff happen.
Theres not even anything there.
Its just like devastation and people whove lost a lot of money without anything to show for it.
So for me, its worth it.
Its a wonderful perk of being in the situation that Ive found myself in.
