How Ryan Coogler’s Proximity Media became Hollywood’s most innovative—and bankable—company

FastCompany: Usually, all-nighters are for college students and people worried about losing their jobs if they don’t deliver. And if there’s one thing that Ryan Coogler—writer, director, and producer of Sinners —has demonstrated over his career, it’s that he delivers. Yet on this February afternoon—a day before his blood-soaked Southern Gothic blockbuster would become the most Oscar-nominated project in cinema history—he’s sitting across from me in a knit monochrome tracksuit and thick-rimmed glasses, looking rather sleepy. “My bad, bro,” he tells me after briefly losing his train of thought in the middle of a sentence.

“I just pulled an all-nighter trying to get a draft in.” The script is for an upcoming TV reboot of the hit 1990s series The X Files , which Ryan is coproducing for Disney+ through Proximity Media, the company he founded with his wife, producer Zinzi Coogler, and producer and screenwriter Sev Ohanian (no relation to Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian). I’m meeting with the three of them at a hotel suite in the Bay Area, where Ryan and Zinzi live, amid a punishing awards-season schedule. Ryan could be forgiven by his partners if a draft were a few days late, but Proximity runs on this kind of commitment.

As Zinzi says as she sips her decaf coffee, the founders are basically family, and “you treat your family a little bit differently because you’re invested in a different way.” Though the three have been working together since Ryan and Ohanian’s student days at the University of Southern California’s School for Cinematic Arts, they didn’t officially found Proximity until 2018, following Ryan’s catalytic success as the writer and director of Fruitvale Station , Creed , and Black Panther . Since then, the company has grown to some 20 people who work across its film, television, audio, music, and unscripted divisions.

Proximity has produced a handful of feature films ( Judas and the Black Messiah , Creed III ), documentaries, and television shows. Sinners , which ended up taking home four Oscars, including for best screenplay and best actor (Michael B. Jordan), is its first feature film written and directed by Ryan himself. Inspired by the imagery and iconography of the Delta blues, the movie is a meditation on Southern Black culture and the exploitative foundations of the plantation system. It’s culturally specific enough to inspire think pieces and podcast interviews.

But it’s also a good old-fashioned vampire horror flick, filmed on IMAX and Panavision to maximum effect. The movie surpassed $350 million in global box office on a $90 million budget, establishing Proximity as a heavyweight. What’s more, the production company secured a head-turning deal with Warner Bros., which financed and distributed the film, reportedly giving Proximity full creative control, first-dollar gross, and rights to the intellectual property after 25 years.

(The Proximity team declined to discuss the deal, saying it was never meant to be public knowledge.) The rights-reversion part of the deal became a flashpoint for other studio executives, though, some of whom speculated that such deals could mean the end of the studio system. Those fears may be overblown: Quentin Tarantino struck a similar rights-reversion deal for his 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ; studios have yet to collapse. And Ryan remains one of the surest bets in town. Measured by both critical reception and box office, the 39-year-old is the most successful director across his first five films since Steven Spielberg.

Article truncated for readability. Read the full piece →

The article highlights a significant shift in the filmmaking industry through Proximity Media's innovative strategies, making it highly impactful and relevant for brand strategy professionals, while also presenting a fresh perspective on film production.