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In a political climate as divided as it has been in a lifetime, it could be said movies are the great uniter. The same version of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey that’s selling out showtimes in blue states is also packing theaters in red states.
But it remains rare that movie studios and distributors attempt to serve the heartland audience on mid-sized productions — a fact of the business that Elizabeth Haggard, SK Global executive vice president and head of film, tells me allows for upstart companies like Angel Studios to fill the void. The Provo, Utah-based distributor bought the rights to SK Global’s latest co-financed production, The Brink of War, with Jeff Daniels as Ronald Reagan and Jared Harris as Mikhail Gorbachev.
“I’m excited about the fact that our company wants to work with distributors who are disrupting, who are working at varying levels,” Haggard tells me on this week’s episode of Rushfield Lunch. “It may be harder for a major studio to release a film at this level with a targeted audience that can satisfy that audience, but Angel is able to do that.”
Haggard is an industry lifer, and her attitude about the business is no worse for wear — no small feat. (“I’m not jumping off the roof; I’m closer to the champagne pop,” she tells me.) After graduating from Dallas’ Southern Methodist University, her first job was as Donna Langley’s assistant at Universal; she later moved to Ramona Films, where she produced A24’s Sundance hit Zola, and then left for Participant Media, where she was SVP of narrative film (and first crossed paths with current SK Global COO Jeannine Tang).
Earlier this year, she was promoted to her current role at SK Global — formerly Sidney Kimmel Entertainment — a company with a historically diverse slate of movies that includes Crazy Rich Asians, Anyone But You, Hell or High Water and all the way back to 9 ½ Weeks.
Still, despite her time in the trenches — and the invaluable lessons she learned from Langley, as we discuss (you just have to watch) — Haggard says the process at Angel Studios really stood out.
“They know their audience. They saw a need; they saw an underserved audience. And it’s not even just the faith-based audience, but there’s an adjacent audience that is folks who want to watch movies that are family-friendly, that are values-friendly,” she says, noting how The Brink of War — the co-production between SK Global and 2521 Entertainment — fits in with the company’s general ethos.
“I’m also fascinated by and really excited by the fact that they’re very data-driven,” she says, pointing to Angel Studios’ guild program that allows members to vote on the projects the company makes. “If they’re excited about distributing a movie, they look at the data coming out of [guild feedback] to see if their core audience responds.”
On The Brink of War, set during the Reykjavík Summit of 1986, SK Global went through that process, and Haggard says the Aug. 14 release received a “lot of love.”
“It almost has that early tech company feel; their data is really sound and really exciting,” she says of Angel. “You see that carry through the way that they market the movie, the way that they make decisions about P&A. I’m really excited to see where it takes them as a company in the next five-plus years.”
