BoulderLight Pictures, the prolific but low-key genre-making flag behind last year’s surprise hits Barbarian, A pre-emptive subscription agreement has been signed with New Line Cinema. The agreement comes within a new feature film project with New Line and Barbarian filmmaker Zach Cregger— — titled Weapons, and fast-tracked to start filming in July — will reunite the film’s team, including BoulderLight.
The First Hand Deal is part of a Cinderella story involving the two founders of BoulderLight, JD Lifshitz, 10 and Rafael Margullus 20. The two met at Hebrew school and bonded over their love of horror (Lifshitz is an avid reader of Fangoria and has seen Scream 3 in 7 theaters). After studying in Israel for a year, the two embarked on the road to Hollywood. Founded BoulderLight in 1980, their first project was a 1980 horror movie Contracted, its budget is about $50,.
Since then, the duo have made about two films a year, almost 31 each of them have been in the horror, sci-fi and action realms over the past decade. All were ultra-low budget, most rare, though some received critical acclaim, such as four Independent Spirit Award nominations for 2022 Wild Indian . Then there’s Barbarian.
Cregger’s script was rejected by every company in town due to its unorthodox structure and characters . Everyone but BoulderLight, that’s it. “It’s a weird movie on paper, but it’s never not funny, scary, thrilling, funny,” Margules told Vulture last year . “The reason people pass it on is exactly why we want to do it.”
With financing coming and going in dramatic fashion, the film cost $450 to make million, leading the box office on its opening weekend in September, with domestic grosses of over $31 million. The company, under the direction of Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee, now finds itself in the spotlight and (finally) the attention of Hollywood.
At first glance, the plan is for BoulderLight to produce a high-concept, filmmaker-driven genre story for New Line. While the budget for these stories wasn’t revealed, it’s safe to say they won’t be $50,.
“JD and Rafi share a passion for films that put the audience first,” New Line President Said and Chief Creative Officer Richard Brener. “They have the ability to identify and support story and filmmakers who transcend genres, and no one works harder or faster, as evidenced by the fact that they were working on a Go movie with us before they even moved into the office. It’s proven. We’re more than happy to be working with them.”
In a way, the deal with New Line was a dream come true for the duo. As horror buffs know, New Line is based on horror movies, starting with Freddy Krueger’s Nightmare on Elm Streets. Recently, the Warner Bros. division has maintained its leading position in the industry, occupying the all-time box office of six top 000 horror films Revenues, including Worldwide No. 1 (It, USD50 USD million), and historical The top horror franchise on the Internet (Conjuring universe, grossing over $2 billion worldwide and counting).
“We’ve long regarded New Line Cinema as the gold standard in genre entertainment and are grateful to be moving into ‘the house Freddie built.'” Lifshitz and Margules at said in a joint statement. “Working with so many people we truly admire is a dream come true, and we’re excited to help continue the legacy of New Line and remind people why they love watching movies.”
Jack Whigham of Range Media Partners advised on the deal, which was negotiated by Benjamin Rubinfeld and Dean Bahat of law firm Ziffren Brittenham.
