Brady Corbet, the 36-year-old director behind Oscar season’s most acclaimed film, has said he – and many of his fellow nominees – are experiencing severe financial difficulties.
Corbet said he “made zero dollars” from his three-and-a-half hour drama about a Hungarian architect in postwar America.
“I just directed three advertisements in Portugal,” Corbet told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast. “It’s the first time that I had made any money in years.” He went on to explain that he and his wife and co-writer/producer, Mona Fastvold, “made zero dollars on the last two films that we made”.
The Brutalist, which has garnered 10 nominations at this year’s Academy Awards, has been widely praised for its relative economy, given its substantial scope and running time.
Corbet’s budget on the film was $9.6m (£7.62m), and a week after its premiere at the Venice film festival in August 2024, distribution rights were acquired by A24 for a similar sum, after a bidding war.
The Brutalist has so far taken $14.6m (£11.6m) in the US. In the UK, where it is being distributed by Focus and Universal, its current total is $3.2m (£2.5m). Rest of the world earnings to date stand at around $13.4m (£10.6m) for a global gross of $31.1m (£24.7m).
On his show, Maron pressed Corbet for clarification about payment for the film, to which he replied: “Yes. Actually, zero. We had to just sort of live off of a paycheck from three years ago.”
A number of his lauded peers were in a similar predicament, said Corbet. “I’ve spoken to many film-makers that have the films that are nominated this year that can’t pay their rent. I mean, that’s a real thing.”
He’s going to make money from it. All he’s saying is he doesn’t get paid from the press tour. This article is dumb, and i hate seeing it pop up.
Bullshit. Directors barely get paid for pre-production. They have teams of creatives that they have to pay that make materials that help the director get the job. That’s a FACT.
Did you read the article?
Indeed.
Further listening on this topic: https://youtu.be/c-9NWamSHao at about 45 minutes in, she talks about this little-known hardship for directors.
She doesn’t say anywhere that she doesn’t get paid for directing in that video.
If you read the article the issue is this:
Directors, he said, were not paid to promote their films, although distributors are believed to fund their expenses.
It the press tour they don’t get paid for. You can bold and make any text you choose to be large, it doesn’t change anything.
She said that she doesn’t get paid for anything other than being on set basically. Being on set is about 10% of the workload a director takes on.
Not sure why you feel the need to refute the things that I’m writing that are objective facts. The article talks about one thing. I’m talking about more than that one thing. I’m talking about THE FULL EXPERIENCE of being a director and where their money goes.
Even on massive tentpole franchises, up and coming directors barely get paid more than the key grip if you factor in the amount of free work they do. Couple that with the fact that they aren’t even guaranteed the job even after doing all of that free work and it is no surprise that they make shit money and only established directors can even afford to bid for multiple projects at once.
I’m talking about the article. The subject of the post. The article says they don’t get paid for the press tour. That’s all it says about not being paid.
I’m sorry if that upsets you … For some reason.
Enjoy the rest of your day
Get a life, scab.
He will get other jobs that will make him money from this, but this one? Not really.
Read the article.
I didn’t just read the article, I listened to the podcast the article is based on. Nothing I said was untrue.
You obviously didn’t do either. But ok.
I have nothing to gain from lying. What do you have to gain from being an asshole here?
That’s unwarranted.
No. It’s completely warranted.
You have been nothing but a troll to this user and I.
