Oscar winner Cathy Schulman on ‘The Idea of You’ and making it as a female producer

Despite her success, film producer Cathy Schulman has never exactly had an easy go of it in Hollywood. Even having won the best picture Oscar for “Crash,” as one of the hit film’s credited producers, she faced money troubles in the 2000s, weathering painful court battles with famed power player Michael Ovitz and fellow “Crash” producer Bob Yari.

Since then, she’s fought for improved female inclusion in the entertainment business, most recently as the founder of Welle Entertainment, a production company behind movies such as CBS Films’ “Five Feet Apart,” Sony Pictures’ “The Woman King” and the limited Showtime series “The First Lady,” for which she was the showrunner.

Schulman’s latest film is “The Idea of You,” a romantic dramedy starring Anne Hathaway as a divorced mother who strikes up a relationship with a much younger singer whom she meets at Coachella. The movie, directed by Michael Showalter, debuts May 2 on Amazon’s Prime Video.

Before founding Welle Entertainment in 2017, Schulman was head of production at STX Entertainment, overseeing films including “Edge of Seventeen” and “Bad Moms.” She served as president of the nonprofit Women in Film from 2007 to 2018. Most recently, she joined with dozens of her peers in a new organization called Producers United, which aims to get better terms for “career producers,” including changes to how fees are paid out in addition to gaining healthcare contributions.

Schulman spoke to The Wide Shot last week.

What was the thesis for Welle Entertainment?

I was running Women in Film at the time, and we had commissioned the initial research that was done by the [USC] Annenberg School [for Communication and Journalism] about women and entertainment.

The big transformative moment for me was when we published a study that basically proved that audiences are primarily female, and women and girls are choosing which content to buy. So I thought, isn’t it funny that I was trained as a producer and executive to make sure that I was making content for men and boys?

But we were caught in this bias. The ideas were retreading, and that makes them blander and more boring. And on top of everything, boys were retreating from long-form entertainment to things like video games. So I thought, why not create a company that makes content for the majority audience? Which didn’t seem like such a crazy idea.

Since then you’ve made “Five Feet Apart,” “Otherhood” and “The Woman King.” Has your thesis borne out?

I think that there’s no question. I had an easier time of selling content when I focused on the female audience, because I was working on things that other people weren’t, so it could stand out a little bit more. That said, do I hit a lot of obstacles every time, with all the reasons why it’s going to fail and why we should have less money than anyone else? Yes, those obstacles still exist.

“The Idea of You,” adapted from the novel by Robinne Lee, tackles sexism, ageism and the confluence of those things and society’s expectations for a mother who’s divorced and on the cusp of turning 40. What drew you to this project?

I’m always looking for commercial ideas that sneakily do a little bit more, and it occurred to me while reading this book that essentially it could be a romantic dramedy, but it wasn’t about a woman’s decision between which man to choose. It was about which type of happiness to choose.

I was also surprised at my interest in the older woman/younger man thing, because it’s not like it hasn’t been explored. We all know what a May-December romance is. And I’m like, “Why is this still so fascinating?” Every time that I get involved in a piece of content, it’s because something sticks with me and then I start to say, do I think this would hit a nerve?

One of the compelling things about the film is that it’s not an either/or proposition.

The one thing that the director, Michael Showalter, and I felt was that it was really important to make sure that the message was ultimately that one should seek happiness, but we didn’t have to come down firmly on one side or another of what happiness looks like for any individual person.

The film is going to Prime Video. At the same time, we’ve seen from “Anyone but You” that there is an appetite for romantic-type movies in theaters. Did you push for a theatrical window?

The whole decision rested in Amazon’s hands, and we heard a lot of analytics about why they made that decision. As a filmmaker, I just come out firmly on the side that I love the theatrical experience, and so it’s hard for me to imagine not wanting that, especially with something that I think crowds will love. Amazon’s analysis of the marketplace suggested that the greatest chance of success would be done this way, and those are our partners and we have to follow their lead. It’ll never make that soulful missing of the theatrical experience go away. But as a businessperson, I have to look to the distribution experts.

Since you stepped down as the head of Women in Film, have you been surprised at all by how things have changed, or not, for female executives and producers?

We went into a pretty good period of progress for a while and did see an increase in the amount of both representation onscreen for women and women of color, and also some growth in the gatekeeping, behind-the-scene roles. But I feel like we’re in a rollback again, unfortunately. The whole country is in a rollback, right? Like what’s happened to women’s personal rights and everything else. The danger with any progressive movement is that people get tired, and then the nature of progress is that it slips back if you’re not careful.

Just add that to the challenges of being a producer right now, with raising money and getting greenlights for projects.

Oh yeah, that. I also think that there’s been so much degradation of what producing means. We’ve gotten to a place where there’s been a separation of the word from the work-service that it represents.

What do you mean by that?

The word “producer” should mean something. It used to mean that you did a certain job.

You do many specific things as a career producer, right? You generally originate the material, find the financing, put the cast and crew together, oversee development, production and postproduction. You consult on marketing and distribution; you’re responsible for the health and well-being of the cast and crew. But there’s been this degradation of the role.

[Producers don’t have a labor union, unlike screenwriters and actors; the Producers Guild of America is a trade group.]

And then you’re faced with the fact that we no longer have that pot of gold — the profit participation — at the other end.

There’s the constriction in the business, so there’s less buyers. And when you have few buyers, the first kind of content that falls apart tends to be the diverse, progressive content. When you’re in a buyer’s market, it’s all about doing what is most guaranteed to work. But the sad truth is that when you repeat what’s been done before in an effort to make it work, it tends to not work anyway.

We’re all trying to figure out what to do in this narrower marketplace. Which brings me back to “The Idea of You.” You want to pick something that you feel is recognizable, but also a little fresh.

Stuff we wrote

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Number of the week

What a week for Paramount Global. The company on Monday ousted its chief executive, Bob Bakish, replacing him with an “office of the CEO” composed of three execs: Paramount Pictures Chief Executive Brian Robbins; CBS Chief Executive George Cheeks; and Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios Chief Chris McCarthy.

This comes amid a period of exclusive negotiations for Skydance founder and tech heir David Ellison, who’s backed by investment firms RedBird Capital and KKR, to take control of Paramount via a transaction with Shari Redstone’s National Amusements Inc. Ellison’s camp had offered $2 billion to buy National Amusements, which holds 77% of Paramount’s voting stock, plus a chain of movie theaters.

Bakish, whom Redstone had entrusted with leading her media empire, didn’t like the prospect of such a deal (neither did non-voting shareholders, who’d complained that their shares would be diluted in the Skydance proposal). Now he’s out after a 27-year career.

Paramount held a first-quarter earnings call Monday afternoon, which lasted just 10 minutes. The company did not take questions from analysts on the call. Investors surely have queries about, say, the Charter carriage deal that is soon to expire and in which Paramount’s declining cable channels have scant leverage. Wild times.

On Sunday, Skydance sweetened its offer by $1 billion, earmarking money for the B-class shareholders to ease some of the worries that they’re getting short shrift in a deal that primarily benefits Redstone, according to reporting by my colleague Meg James. Waiting in the wings as an alternative is private equity giant Apollo Global Management, which has offered a deal valued at $26 billion including Paramount’s $14-billion debt load. Sony has been in talks to join Apollo’s conquest.

As far as the “office of the CEO” structure goes, there was much talk in the company’s internal communications and on the short earnings call about the camaraderie and respect that exists between the three executives (along with the requisite thank-you’s to Bakish for his service). The triumvirate is “finalizing a new long-term plan,” they told staff in an email. While that may all be genuine, nothing about this arrangement feels permanent for obvious reasons.

The earnings themselves seemed like an afterthought. The company posted a net loss of $554 million, which was less than the more-than $1 billion it lost during the same quarter a year prior. Streaming service Paramount+ has grown to 71 million global subscribers, and the direct-to-consumer segment narrowed its quarterly loss to $286 million.

So what happens now? It sure looks like a deal with Ellison is on the inside track, but it remains to be seen whether the sweetener will satisfy the concerns of shareholders, whose holdings have been demolished by years of poor decisions. Shares were up on Monday, with investors likely sensing movement toward some resolution in this public auction.

Best of the web

— Inside the crisis at NPR. (New York Times)

— Analyst Rich Greenfield notes just how many billions Peacock has lost. (X)

— Jerry Seinfeld gave an interview to the New Yorker magazine, and boy do people have thoughts.

— Albert Brooks, the godfather of American comedy. (The Atlantic)

— Why turning stuff off and turning it back on is “gadget-fixing magic.” (Wall Street Journal)

Finally ...

Another great aging rock star interview by Mikael Wood, this time with Jon Bon Jovi on the eve of the new documentary.

Lastly, I went on Sonny Bunch’s “Bulwark Goes to Hollywood” podcast to talk about Netflix, Paramount and A24.