First, Ryan Coogler Made ‘Sinners.’ Now He’s Living the Movie’s Dream

This spring, Ryan Coogler achieved the impossible. In an increasingly bleak film landscape, Coogler made a critically beloved and commercially successful film: Sinners, his dramatic thriller starring Michael B. Jordan as identical twins Smoke and Stack, who are besieged by Irish vampires as they try to get their recently purchased juke joint off the ground in 1930s Mississippi. The Warner Bros. film earned $63.5 million globally over its debut Easter weekend, received rave reviews from critics and audiences alike, and inspired major film stars, like Tom Cruise, to praise Coogler’s film. And the Creed and Black Panther director did it all using original IP—a first for Coogler since his 2013 directorial debut Fruitvale Station, also starring Jordan.

But like many pieces of successful Black art, Sinners also had its skeptics. After its debut weekend, Variety initially reported that profitability was “a ways away” for Sinners, citing its $90 million price tag—without counting its marketing expenses. The trade’s framing angered some Hollywood insiders: “In what universe does a $60 million dollar opening for an original studio movie warrant this headline,” posted Ben Stiller on X, quoting the Variety article. Months later, it’s clear that Stiller and Coogler had the last laugh. In May, Sinners crossed the $300 million mark and is now among the highest-grossing films of 2025. (Not for nothing, Variety has since, conspicuously, changed its tune regarding Sinners, calling it “the first Oscar movie of 2025.”) To quote another plucky film with original IP: How do you like them apples?

All of that would be impressive enough, but Coogler had a few more tricks up his sleeve. The auteur was able to negotiate a final cut on the film—a rarity when working with a major studio like Warner Bros. He also requested first-dollar gross, which meant that he began earning a cut of gross ticket sales the minute Sinners debuted in theaters. And, most significantly, Coogler will own Sinners outright in 25 years.

Coogler’s is the type of deal that is reserved for only the most A-list of directors—people like George Lucas, Mel Gibson, Richard Linklater, and Peter Jackson. Quentin Tarantino cut a similar deal in 2017 for his Oscar-winning film Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. For Coogler to land it at just 39 years old, with only four feature films under his belt, is, of course, a testament to his standing in Hollywood. But it may also reveal how Sinners was underestimated by the studio. It’s an echo of what happened with the first Star Wars film. After that movie went over budget, Lucas famously traded his director’s fee for all the character rights and merchandising—a decision that saved Fox some money in the short term, and in the long run wound up being incredibly lucrative for Lucas. He’s now a billionaire five times over.

Even before Sinners got out of the red, Coogler’s deal left some studio insiders shaking in their Prada boots. An anonymous exec told Vulture that agreements like this may “end the studio system,” while another called it “very dangerous.” Interestingly enough, similar concerns were not widely raised when Tarantino, Linklater, or the allegedly actually dangerous Gibson scored their deals. The studio system also survived Lucas’s seismic deal; Star Wars content continues to be made to this day, and some of it is even pretty good! But the off-the record reaction in Hollywood to Coogler, a Black man, seems to be a lot more skeptical—a painfully familiar echo of the outlets that were once a little too quick to point out that the predominantly Black Sinners had a long road ahead to profitability.

It will be a quarter of a century before it’s clear whether Coogler eventually regaining ownership of his work destroys Hollywood as we know it. Even if it does, Coogler owning his own IP is an especially sweet bit of poetic justice, considering the content of Sinners.

The film begins with Jordan’s identical twin brothers purchasing a sawmill from Hogwood (Dave Maldonado), a local white land owner. Obviously, Smoke and Stack know it’s dangerous doing business with a white man, but they’re willing to entertain the risk. In the film’s third act, it’s revealed that Hogwood was not an upstanding, open-minded businessman—he’s the grand wizard of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, and he planned to “sell” the juke joint to Smoke and Stack, return after it opened, then murder its Black patrons before taking back the land.

There’s a bitter irony to Sinners. Although Smoke and Stack legitimately bought their juke joint, they never really owned it. And unexpectedly enough, it’s the film’s Irish vampires who warn the twins of Hogwood’s insidious intentions. The vampires, too, are more complicated than they appear. Though they obviously pose a physical danger to the brothers’ community, they also pose a metaphorical one, seeking to siphon off the musical talent of Sammie (Miles Canton), Smoke and Stack’s preternaturally talented cousin. The vampires recall the white music execs and performers who have historically profited from stealing the music and style of Black artists. (For more on this, see: Elvis). But in a nuanced twist, Coogler’s vampires are also disenfranchised due to their Irishness. They attempt to use their shared marginalized status to forge a connection with the Black juke joint attendees before ultimately exploiting them.

Though the demons are Smoke and Stack’s first adversary—obvious, bloodthirsty —it’s really the Ku Klux Klan, hiding in plain sight, who pose the bigger threat. The way Coogler structures the film—with Hogwood disappearing for its entire mid-section—it’s easy to almost forget just how dangerous everyday, average white men in the Jim Crow South are to the Black community of Clarksdale, Mississippi.

But to be a disenfranchised person in a marginalized community means never truly relaxing. Smoke and Stack are ultimately prepared for the Klan to return, having secretly buried guns and ammunition in the earth. Smoke is able to kill all of the Klan members when they return the next morning—a cathartic triumph, even as he ultimately succumbs to his wounds.

Neither Smoke nor Stack live to see their dreams come to fruition. Stack is turned into a vampire in the melee before Smoke dies fighting the Klan. But through Sinners, Coogler has achieved Smoke and Stack’s ultimate dream—owning property as he builds a better life for himself and his community. Coogler’s deal allows him to create the kind of generational wealth Black Americans like Smoke and Stack have historically been denied, thanks to more metaphorical vampires like slavery, Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, and the prison industrial complex.

In the vast majority of cases, a film director contributes labor—their creativity, their talent, their intellectual property—to make something that they will never outright own. Despite the critics and the naysayers, Coogler is changing that. And Smoke and Stack would be mighty proud of him for that.