Now a resounding box office success with over $368 million grossed worldwide following glowing critic reviews, Sinners seems poised to be nominated for the Oscars multiple times over. But at the beginning of the pitching process to star Michael B. Jordan, filmmaker Ryan Coogler initially thought his Great Depression-era vampire epic — about twin brothers who open up a juke joint in the Southern heartland of Mississippi — was striking the wrong chord.
On a recent appearance of Good Hang with Amy Poehler, the two-time Academy Award nominee hilariously recalled the initial phone conversation between himself and frequent collaborator Jordan.
“How it ended up working: I was trying to get the screenplay together, ’cause Mike’s busy, and I didn’t wanna say, ‘Hey, I got a thing,’ and then have him waiting for a script; I didn’t need him blowing my phone up, like, ‘Hey, where it’s at?’ But what ended up happening was he called me and pitched me something while I was working on this for him,” the Fruitvale Station writer-director explained. “And at first I was like, ‘Mike, I can’t work on that right now.’ And he got upset [laughs], like, ‘Hey man, what’s going on? I wanna get this going. There’s something you’re not telling me.’”
He continued, “I’m like, ‘Look, I’m working on a thing, I’m bringing this to you, this is what it is: it’s twins, it’s period, it’s vampires. And I remember how he reacted ’cause he just got quiet for a long time [chuckles], and I was like, ‘Oh shit, did I lose him?’ And he’s like, ‘Man, you know what, that sound pretty interesting, man.’”
Afterward, Coogler said he finished the script — which you can read here — and got it to the actor. Elsewhere in the podcast, the Black Panther helmer discussed the extensive drafting process, showing iterations of the screenplay to producing partner and wife Zinzi Coolger and later Sev Ohanian, his longtime business partner who also produced the film via the trio’s Proximity Media.
