Entertainment <\/p>\n
\n\tThanks to the whims of the movie gods, production company Plan B<\/a> Entertainment has seen its three high-profile Oscar<\/a> contenders debut nearly simultaneously: \u201cWomen Talking\u201d (UA via MGM), \u201cBlonde\u201d (Netflix) and \u201cShe Said\u201d (Universal).<\/p>\n \n\tDede Gardner<\/a> \u2014 one of the three Plan B partners, along with Jeremy Kleiner and Brad Pitt<\/a> \u2014 tells Variety<\/em>: \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would happen this way. COVID was big driver, with things backing up and then happening all at once. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a mistake. If movies are alive and kicking, they\u2019re in a conversation with what\u2019s happening inside culture. These three are all in the conversation, and I\u2019m appreciative of the timing of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWomen Talking,\u201d with Sarah Polley directing and adapting the book by Miriam Toews, is about women in a religious sect debating how to handle the physical and mental abuse on their collective. \u201cBlonde\u201d is Andrew Dominik\u2019s look at Marilyn Monroe. \u201cShe Said,\u201d directed by Marie Schrader, follows the two women reporters investigating the predatory behavior of Harvey Weinstein.<\/p>\n \n\tCould they be described as feminist movies?<\/p>\n \n\tGardner says, \u201cI hope everything we make is feminist, but I hope they\u2019re humanist first and foremost. All are meant to be illustrations of power, isolation, fear \u2014 and I don\u2019t think those things are gender-specific.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPlan B, which began in 2001, is hard to define. It\u2019s kind of a boutique company, but its success is big-scale: six best pic Oscar nominations, winning for \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d and \u201cMoonlight.\u201d Its releases include such hits as \u201cWorld War Z,\u201d \u201cThe Big Short,\u201d \u201cVice,\u201d \u201cKilling Them Softly,\u201d \u201cThe Tree of Life,\u201d \u201cIf Beale Street Could Talk\u201d and \u201cSelma.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPlan B has a first-look deal at WB and a second-look with MGM. In December, it closed a deal sell a majority stake to European media conglom Mediawan. <\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s hard to imagine the Plan B trio pitching movie franchises or merchandising with film financiers.<\/p>\n \n\tGardner says, \u201cI have so much admiration for people who know how to think that way. But that would be thinking about something other than the story and I don\u2019t know that I\u2019m good at that.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIf you\u2019re given the opportunity and resources to tell stories, you\u2019d best make them stories that have not been heard, and voices that haven\u2019t been represented, and conditions that need examination.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe and Kleiner don\u2019t divide duties. \u201cWe\u2019re both across everything. We\u2019ve been together 20 years, and I think we bring different things to the table; we can finish each other\u2019s sentences.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cUnder normal circumstances, we share it all. But with COVID, we had multiple things going on, so we covered different things because we couldn\u2019t travel back and forth.\u201d \u201cBlonde\u201d began production in 2019; \u201cWomen\u201d and \u201cShe Said\u201d shot in summer 2021.<\/p>\n \n\tDominik adapted Joyce Carol Oates\u2019 novel \u201cBlonde\u201d and directed it. The film was rapturously received at the Venice Film Fest in September, but Stateside reaction was sharply divided.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI found the vitriol super-confusing,\u201d says Gardner. \u201cI think the accusations are inaccurate. We\u2019ve lived for decades with this person at the center of our joy; the movie suggests she did not share that pleasure. And the movie asks about our complicity as viewers.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAndrew and Ana are remarkable. Some have accused Andrew of not liking Marilyn Monroe, but nobody cares more, or why else do this? Anyone who reads the book or knows him would know this is not true.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe shrugs, \u201cYou are not in control of reactions; you\u2019re in control of your intentions and I know what they were.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt seems likely that the film could be \u201crediscovered\u201d and re-evaluated in a few years.<\/p>\n