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“Orion, Plan B, Louverture, and Anonymous are maybe the only group of people who could make this happen,” director and artist RaMell Ross said of the team of Hollywood execs behind his latest feature-length project Nickel Boys.
Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel of the same, the pic, which Ross co-wrote with Joslyn Barnes, follows the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida. In the movie, a bright, striving teenager navigates the terrors of the Jim Crow South and makes a split decision that recasts the course of his life. On the cusp of college, he’s instead sentenced to time at a notorious reformatory. There he encounters a kindred spirit, forming an alliance, but one with incalculable consequences.
Ross described the feature as an “alternative” adaptation and told the audience here in London at Deadline Contenders that he was “surprised” that his take on the novel made it through the Hollywood studio system.
“Coming from an art and documentary background, you often hear that the studio process is not inviting to the type of imagination that challenges audiences at fundamental levels,” Ross said.
The experience on Nickel Boys, Ross said, was a complete contrast to what he’d heard about working in Hollywood.
“It’s the biggest credit to them [producers] and was surprising the entire way,” Ross said.
Ross was joined on stage this morning at Deadline Contenders by his lead actors Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson, and his producer Joslyn Barnes.
Barnes said she and Ross were “terrified” when they first received Whitehead’s novel from Plan B because it was “so good and so perfect in its economy.”
“If you’re going to tackle something like this and turn it into a film you have to reimagine it completely,” Barnes said, “or you risk making a terrible film of a brilliant book, which is everyone’s nightmare.”
Wilson described the experience of working on the pic with Ross as a “joy” thanks to the confidence the filmmaker had in his actors. The group all also highlighted what they described as the enriching presence of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor on set.
“I don’t feel like I even gave her direction,” Ross said. “She just had this sort of general life force that I think people respond to in person. As an actor, she just has this mastery of people and the characters she’s portraying, which just puts everyone in a position to be better.”
Ross added: “I didn’t imagine working with someone so talented and I was immediately challenged to figure out ways to guide her. It was just a challenge and joy.”
Amazon/MGM will launch Nickel Boys on December 13 in NYC and December 20 in LA.
Check out more Contenders content here.
