Little Minx, a Santa Monica-based production company headed by founder/EP Rhea Scott, has signed award-winning screenwriter and director Joe Carnahan for exclusive commercial representation.
Carnahan brings to Little Minx extensive experience working in both the action and comedy genres. Carnahan also has a flair for talent, having directed actors including Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta. Carnahan wrote and directed The Grey starring Liam Neeson. This reunited the duo after they collaborated on the 2010 big screen version of the TV show The A-Team. The popular 2007 cult film Smokin’ Aces followed Carnahan’s critically acclaimed cop drama Narc, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002 and earned him a Best Director Independent Spirit Award nomination.
On the television side, Carnahan helmed the pilot for the breakout NBC hit The Blacklist and has served as both an executive producer and consultant for the show. Carnahan also created the NBC drama State of Affairs starring Katherine Heigl.
Carnahan’s first foray into commercial work was in 2002, when he wrote and directed the short internet film The Hire: Ticket for BMW. The project was produced by Ridley Scott and starred Clive Owen, Don Cheadle, Ray Liotta and F. Murray Abraham. This was back when Carnahan was directing spots and branded content via RSA. Most recently, prior to joining Little Minx, Carnahan was handled in the ad arena by Pacific Rim Films.
Little Minx founder/EP Scott said of Carnahan, “He fills the room with wry humor and charisma immediately. As a filmmaker, he thinks big, he is bold which is exciting to me.”
Carnahan joins a company roster that includes directors Malik Sayeed, Zoe Cassavetes, Oscar-nominee Rodrigo Prieto, and Guggenheim fellow A.V. Rockwell. The latter earned inclusion into the 2017 SHOOT New Directors Showcase as well as Saatchi & Saatchi’s New Directors Showcase.
Carnahan said, “Rhea and I have been friends for years, so I’ve been able to see her build Little Minx from the ground up and I feel like it’s the perfect place for me at this point in my career. Artists don’t age like athletes. We can always get better and improve and I’m looking forward to challenging myself with this new endeavor.”
Carnahan will be available for commercial projects beginning in September.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this โ and those many "Babadook" memes โ unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables โ "Bah-Bah-Doooook" โ an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More