Plan B’s Team Explains How They Discover Bold Films Like ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Lost City of Z’

The co-presidents of the company responsible for two New York Film Festival titles explain their thinking behind the varied projects they’re tackling at the moment.

Brad Pitt has a famous face, but these days, his name is even more ubiquitous on projects that he doesn’t star in.
Plan B, the production company Pitt co-founded with Brad Grey and Jennifer Aniston in 2001, has gained traction in recent years as one of the most significant entities supporting auteur-driven work in the United States. In 2013, the company helped bring Steve McQueen’s Oscar-dominating “12 Years a Slave” to fruition. Over the next two years, the company’s highlights included Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” and Adam McKay’s “The Big Short,” both of which struck a marked contrast to more traditional studio offerings. Earlier this fall, the company unveiled “The Voyage of Time,” Terrence Malick’s cosmic documentary about the origins of the universe.

But there may be no better demonstration of Plan B’s current focus than the two films it produced that screened this month at the New York Film Festival: Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight,” a decade-spanning look at the life of a young gay black man in Miami, and James Gray’s ambitious “The Lost City of Z,” a rough-hewn adventure drama about British explorer Percy Fawcett’s lifelong attempt to discover a mythical city in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. (A24, which co-produced “Moonlight,” will release the film on October 21; “The Lost City of Z” will be released by Amazon and Bleecker Street next year.) Both movies couldn’t have been made by the traditional Hollywood studio system; they’re singular works that reflect the creative freedoms of their directors, and Plan B provided a crucial foundation for them to exist.

Read more. Interesting interview, I recommand!