How Will Packer Became Hollywood's Billion Dollar Man | Blueprint

[Music] from self-made upstart to Hollywood hitmaker will Packer aimed in an underserved market and hit the bullseye over and over Packers eye for talent and commitment to authenticity have translated into nine number one films and over a billion dollars at the box office this is his blueprint [Music] [Applause] you tell me a little bit about your parents and your home life growing up my parents were amazing my home life was very strong part of the reason that I've had whatever level success I've had is because I had an amazing relationship with my parents together my parents instilled in me you can do anything like before Barack Obama and it was cool for like black parents to tell little black kids you can do it you look at Barack like you can be anything like before all that my parents had me believing that I could fly and I really took that to heart and I've been trying to fly ever since my dad was an engineer my mom was a homemaker so him being an engineer is that what drew you to engineering as a major in college right it is what made me major in engineering it didn't draw me to it that I never wanted to be an engineer what it was was he gave me a strong analytical mind I was always good at math and science and I got a scholarship to major in electrical engineering this was at the time and it's is still a push but at the time they were trying to get more minorities in in the stem majors you know science technology engineering mathematics and so I was very strong in math and science had really good test scores I wanted to go to Wharton I was like that's me I'm going to Ivy League school I am too good to be hanging out with anybody going to a public university that's my mind right and I got this big scholarship to go to FAMU Florida A&M but I had to major in engineering and so I was like listen I set my parents down I was like yeah I got explain something to you first of all I don't want to go to FAMU second of all I don't want to be an engineer they said third of all guess what you're going and so I ended up at FAMU and it was the best decision I ever made I did not find like the bug to get involved with entertainment until my sophomore year in college when along with some of my frat brothers and and specifically one of my line brothers who wanted to be a director he wanted to be the next Spike Lee Hughes brothers John Singleton he had watched them he had made like a small movie in high school and he was lucky I want to be a film director I was like I don't even know what that is I don't know like who looks like us that does that he was like Spike Lee I was like yeah but that's like Hollywood weird hassey Florida right what are we doing so we make this tiny movie we bought like $20,000 to make it Baro is not the right term we begged for that money and they gave it to us from like the diversity government okay the Panhellenic council we got the frats and sororities to kick in some money we got local folks in the community to give us cameras and equipment like there's more equipment in this house and I had to shoot the movie but we're able to borrow like one camera and a sound machine and all of the sort of filmmaking know-how is coming from your partner Rob and just what he's learned in school and you are making it up on the fly brother the filmmaking know-how came from sheer energy hustle and passion Rob had shot a horrible little movie when he was in high school on camcorder but he got it done and so he did know a little bit about that he had been through the process but there is literally zero film school actual formal experience or training anywhere with anybody but it was just it was like we want to do it we just willed it we were like we got to figure it out there were these books that you could buy you could like overpay to buy these books they were called Hollywood creative directories and they had listings of all the companies in Hollywood so we would sin chocolate bars Hershey bars along with the movie along with the poster and a marketing plan to all these different entities out in Hollywood with the hopes that somebody would pick up them we were like we made a movie like we just were so proud of the fact that we actually completed a full-length movie we were like oh this is it like bye we were telling people at FAMU I will see you from the Oscars like I'm literally about to be rich so you might want to be nice to me they didn't even have the audacity to send it back we were able to convince the second one movie theater where they were showing movies for a dollar fifty actually they got out of the main movies I said give me the smaller screen give me a showing where nobody ever comes well you got nothing to lose give me that showing let me show you what I can do we sold out that showing like three weeks in advance so you get the run in the second run theater yeah and now where's the where does the film live after that well that's interesting you should so okay remember this is back in 94 so the holy grail for a movie that didn't like release on thousands of screens was Blockbuster Video remember Blockbuster Video way before netflix and chill' boys and girls there was blockbuster let's make it a blockbuster night we cut a deal with a video distributor a home video distributor in Hollywood like the one out of two people that would would distribute our film and that called us back and we had these two deals on the table and they were both god-awful one was like you will never ever make any money and one was like boy buy so it was like which one of these deals do we take till we took the boy buy and it had like this Pythagorean theorem of equations that you had to go through before you saw any profits on the movie but they were going to distribute it they got it they put together like glossy looking box art for the film and they actually got it distributed in video stores around the country including blockbuster we then use that to go out and tell people with real filmmakers we're on the shelves at blockbuster they've got a blockbuster yeah go look in the blah blah blah section chocolate city and we got a couple copies in there and that kind of gave us a little bit of legitimacy when it was time to move on and try to raise money for future films did the the chocolate city film end up being profitable when all was said and done we actually brought in about a hundred grand with that movie when it was all said and done huge yeah for two kids in college that's a I thought it was over no I literally I was oh this is it like I was calling my mom I don't know where I'm living next out - France Italy Africa I'm out I always was a go-getter like I just I never was the guy that wasn't gonna work hard like whatever it was I was doing you know if I was the the garbage man I'm gonna try to be the best garbage man it's just a competitive driving me and it was an expectation my parents set very early in me that you can be the best so why not be the best do you immediately form rainforests at that point or rainforest was something we started while we were still in college that was Rob nice company to continue making chocolate City style movies we were like we did it once we'll do it again we started it before we graduated so you graduate and what is the next step for the two of you the choice was that we moved to New York or do we move to LA because that's where the film productions companies were that's where the work was and we talked about and thought about it and we said you know what we're gonna be the smallest fish ever in those huge ponds but Atlanta which we know a little bit about the music scene was really just starting to pop when we graduated we graduated in 96 said you know what we could be a big fish in a smaller pond in Atlanta because you got all these people doing music we can come in and move to that market even before we get the film thing really going at least we can do music videos genius so we moved to Atlanta ask me how many music videos we got to shoot how many music videos zero sir not one it was so locked up so tight and everybody knew each other we would outsiders and they weren't about to like give us a budget to shoot the new you know Monica video so fortunately God put us in a place where we were you know two broke kids graduate from college with engineering degrees sitting on a shelf needing to make some money so we said let's do independent film full-time sometimes when stuff is tough I don't know how I'm gonna figure out how you know I'm gonna get that actor in the movie how I'm gonna get that extra money for the budget I need or I'm gonna open the movie because things aren't going right with the marketing campaign I'll come and I'll look at this wall and it'll remind me that I am enough that I can do it let's look at what I've done you know this is my I am enough room you know and everybody needs that everybody needs that place they can go to even if it's just like your bathroom mirror where you look at yourself everybody needs that place where they can tell themselves you are enough that's what this is for me having scored with a niche audience Packer looked for another open Lane and found one with this refined strategy he and partner brob created a slate of projects that demanded Hollywood's attention with chocolate city you made a film that was about sort of loosely your experience or the experience that you were having in college at the time that's right your next film is it erotic thriller yes how does one arrive upon the idea that yes this is what we're gonna do for our next movie we saw that making movies for our niche audience in college works very well it was the same approach with tois we were gonna make a movie for a niche audience that hadn't seen themselves on screen in those situations and that's what we did how does one start raising money for a film you know in their mid 20s in a city that they don't really know anything anyway hardest thing to do ever hard super hard raising money at any level in your career is very difficult at the beginning of your career it is never harder so it was tough it meant knocking on a lot of doors again told no lie and we always thought like the budget of the film would be you know like five hundred thousand dollars but what we did after trying so hard to raise that five hundred thousand we said okay we're gonna set a date not a financial goal an actual calendar goal so so rather than say like this is gonna cost us a hundred thousand to shoot you just said whatever we have May 31st you got it that's the budget of the movie it was in the summer it was two hundred thousand that's how much we had raised it's like maybe August it was late summer because then we shot the movie in the fall and that's what we got our hands on and we said if we don't we'll be raising money forever well we may never get to five hundred ounces so let's take what we got and that's going wrong and that's what we did I thought okay this next one this is the one that's gonna take us you know mainstream global box office like I don't even know what all that really meant but I thought this film could be big and I approached it as such and in a way it was it wasn't gold box office big but for a niche movie that we shot for 200 grand it actually was pretty big yeah you made six or eight times the investment yep which is a total win that's right absolutely how do you get from there to thinking the deal with sony sony saw us because they keep track of all just like they got box office charts now they had them back then it just wasn't online and so Sony was paying attention and seeing this little movie choice made by rainforest films and the guy calls me from and we were in our three-bedroom which was the world wide headquarters of rain for us at the time I answered the phone the guy goes this is blah blah blah I'm head of distribution at Sony Pictures I need to speak to somebody with rain for us about this movie choice and I got well you want to speak to will packer and he said ok wasn't mr. packer I said hold please I put him on I go rob somebody go on the phone so he's on the phone right now and you're asking about why he goes what are you gonna do I said I don't know that got back on the phone I said mr. pack is unavailable but I'll have him call you back give me your number we ended up cutting a deal with Sony for the ancillary rights to tois and then we had a relationship we pitched him like five of the movies they said no to all of them and then they said but what about its y2 we said yes fine we'll do it because we were broke again at that point we do too I want Y to 12:3 at that time we are the number one african-american in erotic thriller producers in the world which is to say we're the only African American Iraq through the producers in the world but we make that third when we convinced him to call it something else so then we had a motives at a motives to at a motive three and then we did at y3 so that was all we could get green that right then we were pigeon holed that's what they allowed us to do you know you're on this sort of loop with Sony for a while yes where they're only letting you make one type of film now I imagine you guys are doing pretty well and starting to have some money in your pocket so that's good but your ambitions are to grow the brand and to be much bigger yeah so you know are you strategizing on how to sort of break yourself out of that cycle well I think that what we were trying to do we were stuck and pigeon hole making those erotic movies but we were trying to figure out while those are good and they're keeping the lights on how do we creatively pitch something to them that they will fund how can we change our pitch adjust our approach my mom was the impetus for this she said I'm so proud of you baby you're doing good you're chasing this film thing I didn't know it'd be successful but all your movies are nasty this is my mom telling all your movies are nasty I can't take my missionaries at the church to go see any of your movies I said okay ma I got you and that's what led us to the gospel because the faith-based market especially the black faith-based market was big and robust we convinced them to take a chance on that and interestingly enough it was the first movie that interest elbow was in after he came off the Ryan and so it was interest and it was Boris Kodjoe and and Nona gay great cast and we shot this small movie it was set in the church I had every gospel artist that was out in the time at the time in the movie or on the soundtrack and we released it we shot it for like 5 million in up making like 12 to 15 million and and so that was my first time I had Sony they actually distribute the film and after that I caught the eye of Screen Gems and now we were off to the races what happened after that after the gospel then we did stomp the yard which was based stomp the yard was really kind of like chocolate city 2.0 and that was still part of that original part of Sony that's ok yes and that that was a major inflection point in your career that was the big movie for us like literally that's the one that I started getting the calls you know and I got my calls returned and I could get meetings because the movie opened number 160 million when all was said and done twelve million dollars to make it I thought it was 75 no don't short my numbers bro is it what was it was it 60 I saw 61 on wiki so I go with that go with that it was it was it might not have been a worldwide number it was five times was back then I don't know that our now international where they needed to be but it may have money internationally yeah but it was number one two weeks in a row crazy so how does your life change it still put us in a position where you know we're still you know making any movie as hard and it wasn't like we had a bunch of successes we had one but that one led to another and another and so we were still at Screen Gems a division of Sony okay after stomp the yard you know takers obsessed this Christmas now that the the door is open and you have more opportunity and more options yeah I'm sure that the scripts that are coming to you are now much more diverse the people who are willing to work with you on the acting side and on the directing side also more diverse how are you making the creative choices on what projects you want to take on following my instincts really that is you know I had at that point just enough confidence to feel like I didn't know everything about what I was doing but enough to know that I knew a little bit and I should follow my instincts about the types of movies that I should and shouldn't make and and those instincts led me to some very successful projects and they were always around content that either nobody else was making or they weren't making it the way that we were making it with the type of actors and the type of story that we would tell around certain themes and and what specifically so for instance like obsessed obsessed is you know it's a thriller and it's a woman coming after guys of one another woman's husband that is it's a derivative idea it's not an idea that you've never seen before but you hadn't seen that before where there was a black couple with a white woman coming after the husband and by the way it didn't hurt that Beyonce was the wife but even with takers takers was a multiracial cast a heist movie where all the guys wore suits all the time that was interesting TI and paul walker and god bless him and Hayden Christensen Matt Dillon and so you hadn't seen that kind of very diverse high screw at that time when I look at your career it's sort of like a hyperbolic curve right you start getting a few hits 2007 2008 2009 and then 2012 2013 2014 2015 it's like 100 million or nothing you know clearly you're learning along the way and sort of refining the process by which you're selecting you know scripts I like getting cast that's right what is that magic formula now I don't know that there's a magic formula man I'm gonna be honest if I did I wouldn't tell you but you know it's um it really is going back to the same thing that worked when I was a college student making my first movie and that was make something that an audience maybe not every audience but an audience finds out fitting and audience finds it should be relatable and says that's my story well that's the story I want to be a part of I want to own it and make it good enough that then people outside of that core audience will also come I don't know that I ever imagined that I'd have a movie theater in my house honestly this is a room that when we were we were designing it my wife was like I want this to be a woman you come in and sit down and feel proud of and so it's so cool because I don't have enough room on the walls to put up all my movies what is the moment that brings you the most satisfaction when it's out period like without a doubt when the movie is when I'm standing in front of the audience at the premiere or a special screening I'm introducing it introducing what we've worked so hard on along with my director and we're saying here it is ladies and gentlemen and you sit back and watch them respond to the movie there's no greater feeling in the world as a creator to have people enjoy what you have created as the hits piled up packers finger remained firmly on the pulse of the multicultural audience yet each new success was regarded as a surprise by media and industry pundits pretty much at the zenith of rainforest success 2012-2013 he decided to dissolve the company and your you know partnership with Rob what happened it had been for a while coming where Rob was met was directing television and I was producing films that he wasn't directing and so while we were still very close and to this day we're close it wasn't like you know a bad breakup like this is a guy who's my line brother and we went to college together we'll be friends forever but from the business standpoint and this is something that I try to tell people all the time you have to be able to separate business from personal our personal relationship was amazing and made all the sense in the world the business relationship stopped making sense because I was producing projects that he wasn't involved with and he was directing projects that I wasn't involved with so we were kind of just holding on to that college dream of you and I'll produce and we'll do everything together and that's not how our paths went in the industry so it made sense to say listen you continue to do your thing under your own business I'll do mine under my own business and we'll figure out ways to continue to work together when it makes sense but when you look at people who have been very successful in business they have been able to pivot to change to be malleable and to make decisions that may run averse to their personal feelings for the good of the business one of the hallmarks of your career has been your ability to find talent what is the thread that you know the first time you see an eID your selva or Kevin Hart yeah what what is it that about them that you're instantly like this is the person I'm gonna make a big gamble you know what it's it helps that I live outside of LA I'm there all the time fly back and forth across the country all the time but we're sitting in Atlanta this is home it makes me interact with people who aren't in the bubble I first realized how amazing popular and talented interest elbow was because women outside of Hollywood were watching the wire not a show that particularly spoke to women but they would watch for him for his stringer Bell character I was able to hear that being around those types of people and I said this guy is ready to go to the next level same thing with Kevin Hart Kevin Hart was somebody that he was making way more noise outside of Hollywood that he was in Hollywood had this perception of Kevin Hart like yeah he's a supporting actor that's been around for a while he tried to have his leading man moment so plane bombed his sitcom bombed he's not a leading man he's a great supporting actor whereas in real America people were watching Kevin Hart videos on YouTube on bootleg over and over again my son and his friends they were watching Kevin Hart videos over and over I was like what Linda Kevin Hart becoming thing they were like bro you're late like he's you know this is like one of his earliest and most special is that you know superhot in the barbershops well that meant that you didn't have numbers that Hollywood could see to say oh look at somebody that's rising up the charts so that it's really about making sure I have my finger on the pulse of real people so you were involved in Straight Outta Compton as an executive producer yeah what do you think is the most important thing that went right with that and why are so many other rap bioptics so terrible I think that was straight out of Compton it was one thing people don't realize is how long that project was in the making and of course cube and Dre and F gary Gray were involved for years 10 plus years we're trying to get that movie to the big screen there were iteration after iteration script after script other distributors were involved I didn't become involved until it came to Universal which was his final stop one of the major reasons that story work was F gary Gray I give him so much love around that movie because it was a story he was born to tell and sometimes that happens with the filmmaker and it was a world that he know in a world that he was from and so he told it with that kind of passion and heart but he also is a commercial filmmaker he understands how to tell a story in an amazingly gripping way all of that led to the success of that story this summer girls trip comes out and debuts number one with 30 million yeah H 31.2 it's not that we're counting them just saying point two or point three whatever okay I understand there but so you make thirty million dollars off of this film and all of the write-ups that I saw in the media were like of surprise like there's a shock no I didn't say that every time is it that in 2017 people are still shocked yeah well because you don't have a lot of them right yeah I mean look you know this was one of the things I pitched my pushing movie I said there's never been an r-rated female comedy with black women at the center like how do we not jump on that like even if we do the bad version will be the only one in people to go just because of that so I think that there's still that element of surprise and by the way I've been very fortune I've got you know like nine number-one movies and I think that it will change over time as the expectation becomes that this is more the rule and not the exception the exception now is when a Tom Cruise movie opens and doesn't do big numbers that's the exception because for so long Tom Cruise movies or movies with just white dudes have been huge but you haven't had a lot of movies with black people in from the camera that have come out and opened successfully so there still is kind of a I don't know how big the audience could be for that or what it might do it will change and it will change as more and more of these movies are made and as the audience continues to support those movies but in the interim I'm having fun playing the underdog role I'll take it there has been such a dearth for so long of black filmmakers of just filmmakers of color in general and so we have so far to go there's not a lot of Wolf Pack there's not a lot of producers like I mean that make the content that I make and it takes time it takes me being able to bring people up it takes other people to be able to get their stories told and get in front of Studios who will make their movies but my success benefits them in the same way that I wouldn't be here if there wasn't a Spike Lee or the Hudlin brothers you know or other filmmakers that had successful movies starring actors of color I need that so when I come in Hollywood it's a reactive industry it's not proactive is reactive what has already worked okay that's what we want to do so the fact that I'm making movies like this that work it'll make it easier for somebody else to come in but it takes time we're not there yet do you think that we will get to a place in Hollywood in the not-too-distant future where you're able to make a film with a hundred million dollar budget around people of color yes absolutely I mean you know it's happening right now the the blackest movie ever made is black panther I mean there's nothing blacker this black this black panther everybody is black like you know so and I love it I love what it's gonna do obviously that's Marvel so it's based on tremendously successful IP but when that movie works and I'm already claiming it I am Ryan Coogler is there a lot riding on that there there's no question I mean if that movie were not to work because you know the Marvel movies generally work if that movie were not to work there will be one area that you pointed and that will be the blackness of the movie and did non black audiences go see it did worldwide audiences go see it and if not it's gonna be tough to do that again the films you've made and the success that you've enjoyed has changed the way that race in America is framed in many ways Wow that's huge that's a big statement how do you feel about that it tremendous I mean you know sometimes you have to take a step back and look and go wow I really have made 20-plus films and this much money at the box office because when you're in it you can't sit up and look around and you can't be in your rear-view mirror if you're driving for it you kind of got to be focused in going but sometimes I do take a step back and look at what I've accomplished and the impact of what I've accomplished and how I've been able to affect other people's careers and people that I remember interning for me that are now you know directing their own films and that's a really really good feeling you've achieved enormous success over the last two decades yeah first of all is there any ceiling to that do you think like are you just is there any place where you would check out no matter how successful I am it's great to have a normal movie it's great to have a big box office but ultimately when I leave this earth it's my legacy that's gonna matter right they it's not a bunch of stats it's gonna be well how were his kids who did who lives that he touched who did he mentor who did he bring along I want to I want to leave this earth with people saying that he affected other people you know he yes he was a successful whatever but it was what he did the way he touched other people's lives that's what we will remember and that's what he left behind [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Complex

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Keywords: sneakerhead, complex, complex originals, sneakers, news, entertainment, current affairs, young man, culture, cool, edgy, funny, complex tv, complex media, will packer, rob hardy, rainforest films, florida A&M university, trois, girls trip, film, hollywood, black actors, movies, black panther, stomp the yard, idris elba, kevin hart, beyonce, straight outta compton, ford, film producer, blueprint complex, Noah Callahan-Bever

Id: 7XYzO4s7JXc

Length: 29min 59sec (1799 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2017