James Michaels caught up with Jonathan Sothcott, chairman of Shogun Films and veteran British producer whose credits include We Still Kill The Old Way, Vendetta, Nemesis and Renegades…
The last time we spoke you were making the US-facing action movie Renegades and were firmly focused on that market – is that still the case?
No, not really. There was a huge boom in low budget (and by that I mean $500k to $1.5m) action movies capitalising on slightly faded stars whose theatrical value had been extinguished by Disney/Marvel etc. At the high end was Bruce Willis but there were dozens more. Often the films were bad and these guys made tiny cameos, often unrelated to the plots of the films, and so couldn’t/wouldn’t promote them (“tell me about making this movie” “I was there for 3 hours with a tele prompter”) and then when the disaster of 2020 unfolded these things, which could be made around the Covid situation, developed a massively inflated value and changed hands for big sums of money… but didn’t perform any better and in some cases worse than before… which made the whole value chain toxic.
Strangely I had been through this once before, in 2010/11 a UK distributor called Revolver had a huge hit with a sort of gritty drama called City Rats which happened to star Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan, although they were never on screen together. It was totally mis-sold as a sort of unofficial sequel to The Business but shifted hundred of thousands of DVDs so suddenly Revolver (and their competitors) started badging up anything Dyer was in as a gangster movie. So we had Borstal Boy (gay prison drama), Malice In Wonderland (whacky modern fairytale), Just For The Record (film industry mockumentary), Freerunner (US parkour thriller) and many more ludicrously presented as British gangster movies. The public – who are never given much credit by distributors – soon get wise to this and voted with their feet. The blow was somewhat cushioned back in the day because in the DVD era wives bought a lot of DVDs for their husbands in supermarkets based on covers, but the digital selection is now a much more personal one so there’s no margin for these kind of accidental sales. So the game is up and we came in pretty much as it was, that market suddenly became a lot smaller and more selective. Frustrating, but in this game to adapt is to survive.
These things also aren’t popular with the people running the streamers either. You only have to look at how much of a sleeper Yellowstone was – the biggest show in America but nobody talked about it. So without DVD/Video it’s hard to find a significant platform for these kind of trad action movies at that level and therefore to monetise them, at least in the volume there was 4 or 5 years ago.
Does that mean the indie action movie is dead? No, but it’s a lot harder than it was and actors who were perceived to have value a few years ago are now pretty much a negative rather than a positive. There will, hopefully, always be a big audience for traditional action movies but they have to be made with care and thought, not just cobbled together as though they’re an inconvenience.
There’s also a problem with that genre, which has always been star-driven, that we’re running out of stars, they’re getting too old. These guys who could guarantee a $50m box office in the 90s are the last of their kind, so while they made straight to video hay, there’s nobody coming up behind them. And Disney and Netflix aren’t in the business of making stars, they’re in the business of creating (and buying) IP which uses existing stars for elevation but would ultimately rather do without them.
I’m working on an action movie called Active Shooters at the moment with Chad Law, one of the very best genre writers in the space and we’re having a lot of fun making something that will deliver for the audience while ducking the negative trends. Chad is someone I really value, we are kindred spirits. We’re not rushing because we need it to be good enough to stand out. So action stuff is tough but it’s still a damn sight better than the UK market.
What exactly has happened to the UK market?
Well it is dead and buried for the kind of films I used to make and nobody is talking about the ‘why’ which is piracy. I hate that word, it gives theft a glamorous, Errol Flynn style gloss which it does not merit. There’s nowhere else in the western world where film piracy is just completely accepted and never discussed and the collapse of the physical market was the final nail in the coffin. The moody Amazon Firestick has legitimised wholesale theft and nobody is interested.
For years I’ve had long debates with people on social media about how they’re watching my films illegally so if there’s no revenue there will be no more films and now it has become true, the domestic indie British film is almost extinct (the obvious exception to that is the Rise of the Footsoldier series but that’s a six movie, decade-long franchise with an engaged fanbase in the millions and benefits from the significant star power Craig Fairbrass has in that space). As DVD went into terminal decline, all the mid-tier distributors keeled over (Revolver, Metrodome, Anchor Bay et al) leaving a few little ones with no marketing budgets or outposts for major studios with no bandwidth for local indies. It is a mess.
What pisses me off is that if the government – so desperate to tout what a big success the British film industry is – spent 1% cracking down on piracy that they do on the ridiculous conceit of the TV License, the UK indie film sector might have a chance. But they won’t because they have no skin in the game and absolutely no handle on the difference between making British Films and the UK facilitating Hollywood Productions – and that’s what the UK is now, a service destination for US films and series.
A distributor told me recently that in the last decade the UK has gone from the 4th biggest global territory to the 12th. That’s depressing.
So is a move to America on the cards?
Never say never. I used to think I should have gone in 2014 when I made We Still Kill The Old Way, but I love England and I think there’s still a lot we can do here, so long as we’re not relying on the market in any significant way. To be honest my life changed a lot – and only for the better – when I met my wife, the actress Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott, setting up Shogun was her idea and she’s very involved with the business. Although we are aligned about pretty much everything she constantly challenges me, which I need in order to aim high and do my best. That said we are making a US movie soon, our first, which is exciting. So hopefully we’ll have the best of both worlds… and chalk up a lot of Air Miles.
Do you think there is still a market for the British gangster films you’re known for?
There’s an appetite for them, certainly, but traditionally they always made their money in the UK and did minor business abroad and that is no longer possible. The one that may change things though is Nick Love’s new film Marching Powder with Danny Dyer – assuming it’s intended for a substantial theatrical release it could just as easily kickstart a renaissance for this stuff the way they did with the Football Factory back in the day. If Dyer and Love really get behind it and tour the cinemas doing intros and Q&As it has potential to shake things up. But without a proper box office gross, which was never part of the finance plan with these things traditionally, it’s very hard.
Although I haven’t made these films in volume for many years people still associate me with them, they stop me on trains and in pubs, or the other day a new postman started telling me how much he liked those movies on the doorstep which is incredibly flattering. I think they are always a bit disappointed that I’m not a cockney geezer in a Fila top and a flat cap.
Do you have a long term plan for Shogun Films in the next decade?
Yes. From 2024 we’ll be making a minimum – an absolute minimum – of 6 films per year, but hopefully 10. We’re expanding our staff significantly and growing – from our current two offices in the UK to three and one in the USA.
We made two films in 2023 and spent the rest of the year building the foundation for 2024: in terms of financing and infrastructure, building relationships internationally and crafting a slate of the best possible product. Action, horror, westerns, sci fi, thrillers. All the fun stuff.
It is our ambition to become the premiere provider of high grade, quality independent genre content in the UK and Europe, creating a regular and consistent conveyor belt of great movies at sensible prices, giving a lot of opportunities for people to work on movies that will actually get seen and incubating talent. That makes it sound easy, it isn’t, otherwise more people would be doing it, but we’ll get there.
How does the development process work at Shogun?
It varies so much from project to project – sometimes a distributor gives me a brief, sometimes I dream up an idea and sometimes a writer or filmmaker sends me something on spec which is exactly what I never knew I needed! I am very, very hands on with the creative process (hopefully without pissing off the directors too much) and probably 30% of my time is spent on development.
I’ve been working a lot in ’23 with a director called Ben Mole who I like tremendously, we’ve known each other 20 years but only really pooled resources recently and he’s a joy, he’s hyper-intelligent, very film-literate and I find we’re very much in synch creatively. But it doesn’t always have to be like that, another director I have been working with I butt heads with all the time but I can live with it because he’s great. And that’s the most important thing – quality. We are making B movies but they have to be the best possible B movies that they can be. In Stephen King’s intro to Salem’s Lot he talks about how his mother liked him reading good trash rather than just trash. We’re not here to change the world, just entertain people.
You’ve recently completed two horror movies. Two decades ago you helped set up and launch the UK Horror Channel – is the genre in your blood?
Oh yes for sure, after action it is my favourite genre. I was really quite taken with Terrifier 2, I thought it was terrific and totally get why it stood out and made so much money and that very much inspired me to push into the genre with a renewed vigour. We made this movie Helloween last year about a psycho killer incarcerated in an asylum who is dressed as a clown during the 2016 ‘killer clown’ phase. His doctor and a journalist think he is manipulating events from confinement and have to stop him before he triggers a massacre on Halloween. It has elements of Joker, Halloween, Urban Legend and I truly believe it has all the makings of a proper cult movie. When you’ve made something good you can tell, and I know this one’s good.
While it’s a shame The Horror Channel as was is no more (it’s now Legend), I was delighted to see a new venture called NYX has entered the fray to fill the void it left – there’s a group of very shrewd people behind it who love the genre and they are programming some wonderful content. Definitely something to check out.
Is there more horror on the horizon?
We made another one last year called Peter Rabid, a fun gonzo slasher with a great cast of young actors (and cameos from Guy Henry, my wife and Johnny Palmiero) which will be released this year. I’m currently in pre-production on Werewolf Hunt, which draws inspiration from both The Beast Must Die and Predator and will feature a terrific international cast and really cool practical werewolf effects. We’re looking at an American horror called A Walk In The Park, an action horror with cowboys battling vampires on a moving train, and a sci-fi/horror home invasion movie called Inhuman too so there’s a bustling genre slate here and I think it’s a great time to be doing it.
You’ve worked with a lot of iconic actors from 80s and 90s movies from Lee Majors and Ian Ogilvy to Michael Pare and Danny Trejo. Who is on your future wish list?
Number one is Sylvester Stallone, I’d love to do something with him. During the 2020 lockdown I wrote a film with Steven Seagal, it would be great to do one last good movie for him, something akin to his first half dozen movies, a Death Wish style revenge film. Out For Justice is one of my favourite movies.
There are so many great actors in my sights – Tom Berenger, Ron Perlman, Michael Biehn, Arnold Vosloo, Linda Hamilton, Sharon Stone, Devon Sawa, Pierce Brosnan…
I’d love to do something with Scott Adkins, he’s brilliant. He brought me his Accident Man project years ago and to my chagrin I didn’t get it and passed. What a dope. I also set up Eliminators for him with WWE but someone else ended up doing it. Two massive regrets there. I thought Avengement really stood out as something special for him, and he was magnificent in it. He has a unique talent.
What kind of movies do you like yourself?
I have a really blokey sensibility – my favourite movie decade is the 80s so action (Commando, Predator, Terminator, Conan, Revenge of the Ninja, Who Dares Wins, The Fourth Protocol, Octopussy, Above The Law, the Rocky series, Karate Kid), horror (Lost Boys, Fright Night, Nightmare on Elm Street, Waxworks, The Monster Squad) and the genre I feel we have almost lost, Family – The Goonies, Teenwolf, Gremlins, Cocoon. There are so many. And then there’s Miracle Mile, Return of the Jedi, American Werewolf, Twilight Zone The Movie, Streets of Fire. We still watch Blu-rays (and read books) and I hope that never changes.
Many thanks to Jonathan for taking the time for this interview. Helloween, Peter Rabid and Knightfall will be released this year.
