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.”
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.
Feel free to quote the part of the article that says otherwise.
Again, I was expanding upon the topics that were covered in the article because I work in that industry, studio scab. Just because you decided to cherry-pick something to refute from the article doesn’t make directors stop requiring money to survive when they aren’t a: actively directing a project or b: doing a press tour.
These are living people that require money to live all year round. I was talking about the time periods and time not covered by the article which, in fact, comprise most of a director’s time spent on earth.
I can only assume at this point that you directly benefit from the exploitation of directors and work directly for the incredibly shady studios that refuse to pay directors based on long-established labor laws.
You’re insane.
You are dumb and I hate your dumb comment that attempts to astroturf the myth that the studios aren’t actively exploiting free labor whenever possible.
Show me in the article where it says otherwise. I’ve already quoted the relevant post. You haven’t.
I literally linked a video where an actual working director is discussing this very topic.
Are you one of those people that can’t discuss anything other than the article? Do you not understand that these topics have nuance that experts can freely add their opinions on?
Imagine if all discussions in every comment section couldn’t talk about anything unless it was covered in the article. Your perpetually moving goal posts are tiring and actually insane.