{"id":299832,"date":"2026-02-15T20:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T20:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/299832\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T20:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T20:03:07","slug":"josephine-producer-praises-channing-tatum-gemma-chans-commitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/299832\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Josephine’ Producer Praises Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan’s Commitment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDavid Kaplan<\/a>, producer of Beth de Ara\u00fajo\u2019s Sundance breakout Josephine<\/a>, has praised the commitment of Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan to the indie project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTatum (Roofman) and Chan (Crazy Rich Asians) co-star as the parents of the eight-year-old protagonist Josephine, whose life is upended when she witnesses a violent sexual assault at San Francisco\u2019s Golden Gate Park, played by big screen debutant Mason Reeves.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Berlin for the international premiere of the film in competition following its Grand Jury and Audience Award prizes in Sundance , Kaplan told an EFM Conference panel, thatTatum and Chan had taken producer credits on the film for entirely \u201cworthy reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGemma\u2019s involvement in this film dates back very many years. She stood by it when it was happening before and it fell apart, and she stood by it, when it was time to make the movie. She made the time and was so deeply committed to the character she played,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cChanning was a much later addition but I heard stories from people who were involved in the film and people who weren\u2019t involved in the film that he would see people who could finance the film and say, \u2018I\u2019m trying to make this film, Josephine, and I believe in it so strongly, and I hope you\u2019ll be a part of it,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was part of the team raising the money and trying to make the movie. And you just don\u2019t see that very often. Their commitment and their steadfastness, it\u2019s what you dream about in your actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKaplan revealed the production had come together at the eleventh hour both in terms of the casting and financing, with Ara\u00fajo scouting Reeves in a farmer\u2019s market just seven weeks before principal photography began, having auditioned 90 hopefuls, with the finalists including a \u201cvery established actor\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMason was only seven at the time\u2026 she turned eight on set. We had a little party\u2026 she\u2019s actually younger than on the page, but she seemed so mature for her age,\u201d said Kaplan. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cImmediately, from the first time Beth started working with Mason in the casting process, she was like, \u2018This is the girl. This is a choice,\u201d he added, noting there was scepticism on the part of the producers about Reeve\u2019s suitability for the role due to her young and lack of experience.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf we had cast a nine-year-old, we would have been able to work that person more hours every day, so by casting someone younger our schedule had to be longer. We had to spend more money on this film just to cast Mason. Beth had to make compromises creatively to cast this girl who had never acted before\u2026 clearly it was the right choice. So, I don\u2019t know, sometimes serendipity or just believe the director who knows what she wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKaplan said and the finance plan and project went through several iterations, with 99 percent of the people they approached turning them down.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think reason number one is perceived commerciality,\u201d he said, on the pushback. \u201cA film like this couldn\u2019t possibly be commercial. Who wants to see something stark in stark times. We need comedy. We need levity. We need romantic comedies. We need films with Jason Statham, Gerald Butler. \u00a0you don\u2019t need a film about assault,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think there\u2019s also inherent bias against films that are perhaps more geared towards women and assault survivors. So, I think there\u2019s a lack of belief in them as an audience, and a lack of desire to try to find them as an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSumerian Pictures Deal<\/p>\n

\n\tKaplan was speaking in the wake of the announcement on Saturday that Sumerian Pictures had acquired<\/a> U.S. rights for the film, with the indie distributor making its biggest ever acquisition in a competitive bidding process.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were lucky enough to get a few offers on the film from different companies, although interestingly\u2026 nothing worldwide, only deals for the U.S. or international, nothing across. We found ourselves an interesting situation where we were picking specifically between U.S. distributors, not world distributors,\u201d said Kaplan.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe never necessarily envisioned this as a film made for streaming\u2026 we had a few offers, varying levels of financing, varying levels of theatrical commitment. Obviously, that plays some role in all of this. It was very important to Beth always, that our investors make their money back if they could. They took tremendous risk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPart of the calculus, on what we decided was, of course, financial, but Sumerian, in addition to making a very meaningful financial offer, also offered a very meaningful screen commitment, a very meaningful P&A commitment,\u201d he continued, saying the company had paid mid to high seven figures.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn this market, that\u2019s a huge financial commitment. That\u2019s a great outcome. That\u2019s also not just a great outcome for the investors, it\u2019s a commitment that they are making to the film as a business. They need to now go and push this film to make it work for them financially.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tGiving an update on his upcoming projects, Kaplan said he was hopeful that the It Follows sequel, with David Robert Mitchell returning to direct and led by Neon, on which he is a producer, would shoot this summer. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, he is in the throes of post-production on Gabriel Nussbaum\u2019s debut feature Triumph of the Will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Kaplan, producer of Beth de Ara\u00fajo\u2019s Sundance breakout Josephine, has praised the commitment of Channing Tatum and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,142064,93,61,60,128648],"class_list":{"0":"post-299832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-david-kaplan","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-josephine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}