David Kaplan on Risking It All on ‘Josephine’ and ‘It Follows’ Sequel

When David Kaplan, the New York-based producer of Beth de Araújo’s Sundance prizewinning “Josephine,” arrived at the hearth chat hosted by European Film Market on Sunday afternoon, he seemed like he’d been working across different time zones, which, by all accounts, he has.

The U.S. deal for “Josephine” to Sumerian Pictures closed late last evening in Berlin, which made the timing for the on-stage dialogue moderated by Variety fairly becoming.

After securing a double prize win at Sundance, the film was lastly offered by WME Independent and CAA Media Finance to upstart U.S. distributor Sumerian in a ‘mid-to-high seven figures,” said Kaplan on stage in Berlin, where the film will play in competition. For a film that most of the market initially resisted, it’s a profitable pact that Kaplan hopes will repay in the future, and will also enable traders to get their a reimbursement on the movie which was budgeted at $6 million and only accomplished its financing six days into the shoot.

“We had a few offers, varying levels of financing, varying levels of theatrical commitment. Obviously, that plays some role in all of this,” he said candidly.

“It was very important to Beth always that our investors made their money back if they could. They took tremendous risk. It’s important to me as a producer in the same way. Why would anyone want to work with you again if you don’t take care of them in that way, particularly in success?”

Sumerian also supplied “a very meaningful screen commitment, a very meaningful P&A commitment,” continued Kaplan, whose company Kaplan Morrison, which he based with Andrew Morrison three years in the past, has to date produced Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” and Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee.” 

Kaplan said Sumerian splurged on “Josephine” and “told (them) this is going to be the flagship.” “I think we just saw that in them, there was a partner who maybe had as much skin in the game as we did and could. You want that.”

The producer, who hinted that he also took some private danger to make “Josephine” and didn’t take an upfront charge (and presumably no backend both), can relate to that level of dedication.

“Like everybody else on the film, everybody sacrificed for this film,” Kaplan said. “That’s how you make a film with movie stars and a great director and great crew in an expensive city for that amount. It takes a village of people who believe.”

“Josephine” was 12 years in the making and Kaplan got here on board in the last three. He had identified de Araújo for years and was working together with her on another project. But “Josephine” immediately took precedence after de Araújo met Channing Tatum, Kaplan recalled.

“She called me up and said, ‘Well, I know we’re supposed to be making this other film, and I’m still very excited about that, but I now have two actors for this other script (Gemma Chan had already been attached for years). Would you ever be interested in perhaps doing that first?’” Kaplan said.

“To which I said, ‘Gemma Chan, Channing Tatum, this beautiful script of yours that I read years ago that I know you’ve always wanted to make, the movie that you’ve always wanted to make. Yeah, we should probably do that.’”

Kaplan joked about the variety of producers who tried to mount it. Among the bunch is not any other than Sean Baker (“Anora”). “Someday we have to have a dinner for all the producers of ‘Josephine,’ because collectively, we all made this movie. It just took a very long time.”

“Josephine” is certainly not a straightforward sale at a time when the market is usually excited about really feel good films, comedies, romances or style. Inspired by occasions de Araújo witnessed as a baby, the movie tells the story of an 8-year-old who sees a rape in Golden Gate Park. Tatum and Chan play Josephine’s mother and father, who must navigate the little lady’s trauma amid the quest for justice for the survivor.

Despite de Araújo’s debut “Soft & Quiet” which was critically acclaimed at South by Southwest upon premiering in 2022, “Josephine” was almost inconceivable to finance given its subject.

“99% of the people we went to and said, ‘Would you like to make this film?’ said, ‘Absolutely not,’” Kaplan recollects.

“Resistance, concern, skepticism about the commerciality, worry from parents about what this film is and worrying that it’s too dark,” Kaplan said of the difficulties to finance the film. “I think there was a lot of concern that who is this movie for? How is this movie going to be? Is it commercial?”

He also pointed to an “inherent bias against films that are perhaps more geared towards women and assault survivors.”

Tatum and Chan, who served as producers on the movie, also performed a decisive function in getting the project off the floor. “Gemma’s involvement in this film dates back many years now. She stood by it,” he said. Tatum, meanwhile, went so far as pitching traders. “He was a part of the team, raising the money and trying to make the movie. You just don’t see that very often,” he said.

Mason Lily Reeves, who performs the title function in the movie, was found just seven weeks before manufacturing when de Araújo noticed her at a farmers’ market in San Francisco.

“Beth… saw her in a crowd at a market seven weeks before we started shooting,” Kaplan said. De Araújo approached Reeves’ mom instantly. The team had seen roughly 90 youngsters, including an skilled younger actor, however de Araújo was firm. “Immediately, from the first time Beth started working with Mason in the casting process, she was like, ‘This is the girl.’”

Since Reeves was only seven when she was solid, it bought more difficult for the manufacturing. “In America, there are labor laws,” Kaplan famous. “Casting someone younger meant that our schedule had to be longer and we had to spend more money on this film for days just to cast Mason.”

Ultimately, the movie was financed by three fairness companions: Spark Features; Kinematics (“The Apprentice”); and Yintai Entertainment (“The Testament of Ann Lee”), which got here aboard during manufacturing. The shut got here perilously late. “We closed the financing… six days into principal photography. Not knowing if it would fall apart, even two days before we started production.”

“The film shot in San Francisco, a decision de Araújo insisted on. “The texture of the city animates the movie. We could not fake San Francisco and didn’t want to.”

Kaplan’s banner now is creating about six tasks, including Brady Corbet’s and Mona Fastvold’s next tasks, in addition to the extremely anticipated sequel to “It Follows,” David Robert Mitchell’s cult 2014 style movie, which Neon has boarded.

“We have partners in both U.S. and internationally to release the film,” he said, including that the sequel will “hopefully start shooting in the months to come.”

Kaplan is also in submit with another bold project, “Triumph of the Will,” which is directed by Gabriel Nussbaum with a solid led by Shira Haas (“Unorthodox”). The movie is a sprawling interval film set during WWII and stars Haas as a lady who leaves her husband in Amsterdam in 1937 to start a new life together with her daughter in Berlin, the place she takes up with a firebrand rabbi on a mission to assist Jews get out of the nation.