When Jon Kamen co-founded RadicalMedia in 1993, he had no idea just how much the entertainment landscape would change. But he knew he didn’t want to spend his entire career making 30-second commercials.
Over two decades later, the independent production company’s work now spans across commercial and branded content, television, film, documentaries, music videos and immersive experiences and events.
Radical’s projects have ranged from QuestLove’s “Summer of Soul” and the pilot episode of “Mad Men” to film versions of Broadway’s “Hamilton, ” “American Utopia” and the recent revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez, which is now in theaters for a limited run. It also has experimented with new mediums, producing the Apple Vision Pro’s first full-length feature film, “Bono: Stories of Surrender.”
“I co-founded RadicalMedia on the thesis of using our name as a mantra that the world of media was going to change. I wanted to make sure that as a company, we were going to embrace the changes that were going to take place in the media landscape,” Kamen told TheWrap’s Office With a View. “We’ve accomplished a lot. We’re not always 100% done with our mission, because you never are, but we are certainly a very diversified company and have produced lots of things in different media. We’re always searching for what that next project might be that excites us as much as the last one.”
Now, the media industry is poised for another massive change: the prospect of one less major studio in Hollywood as Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to sell its studio and streaming businesses to Netflix (with Paramount still trying to scoop it all up with a hostile bid). Despite the threat of consolidation in the entertainment industry in the coming years, Kamen and RadicalMedia’s entertainment president and former MTV executive David Sirulnick remain optimistic that everything will eventually balance out.
“We don’t have a say in it. So we ride it out like everyone else does. We’re always paying attention to it. We feel confident about a lot of the projects we create and pitch and come up with. The business side of that is for others to decide and we’ll still be here pitching whoever’s doors are open,” Sirulnick said. “If it narrows, I think we all work with that for awhile and hopefully it opens back up again because there’s new things that happen. This many streamers weren’t always here. We don’t know what’s next after streaming or what consolidation might do to springboard something else that we don’t see right now.”
“There’s no question these are challenging times,” Kamen added. “But people still need quality storytelling. They need to be inspired and they need original ideas. And that’s where I think we play an important role in leadership and in staying the course but adjusting as we have to.”
Read on for the rest of the conversation with Kamen and Sirulnick below, edited for clarity and brevity.
How do you decide which projects to take on?
Kamen: It’s always tricky in that you can try to pitch materials that you know everyone’s buying at this very moment or you can try to be ahead of the curve and come up with your own original work. We’ve always had a reputation for leading the way with original programming. For us, evaluating whether something has legs, whether something is going to really engage us as much as an audience, is our own measure. A lot of people rely on a lot of algorithms and one of the reasons so many things are beginning to look the same is an over-reliance on an algorithm versus human instinct. We still like to trust our instincts. Data will tell you what’s been successful, but it can’t necessarily tell you what’s going to be successful next.
You notably produced the filmed version of “Hamilton” for Disney+, which was recently released in theaters for the Broadway show’s 10th anniversary. How did that deal come about?
Kamen: We started with the description of a cinematic interpretation of it. We worked very carefully with “Hamilton,” with Tommy Kail and with Lin Manuel Miranda and the whole creative team of that show to faithfully render another version of that show that allowed for audiences to enjoy it in a different medium.
20 years ago we did “Rent: Live on Broadway” and between “Rent” and “Hamilton” we worked on a little film about In the Heights which was from the first workshop to the night it won the Tony. And when Lin was writing “Hamilton,” he asked if we thought it was worth of a documentary on our founding fathers and we made a documentary called “Hamilton’s America” that Lin was very proud to share with his alum at PBS.
When he was getting closer to the actual production at the Public Theater, we had discussed the possibility of preserving the original cast in the show, but they knew they were going to be going to Broadway and [producer] Jeffrey Seller and I had talked about it for a long time. Toward the very end of the original cast’s run, we got the call from Jeffrey and Lin: ‘Okay we’re ready, but the deal is we’re going to put it in a vault for five years.’ We finished and edited it and actually got to screen it on a large screen with Lin and Tommy and then we put it away. Quite frankly, we were paranoid for four of those years because God forbid it would ever get out. We had security around that.
But one day during the pandemic, I got a call from Jeffrey that they were thinking since Broadway was on its knees and nobody could go to that theater that maybe they were ready to share it with the world a year earlier than we intended. And they quietly went about finding a partner and it turned out to be Disney. CEO Bob Iger is a major fan of Lin’s work and we knew it was going to end up being released around the beginning of Disney+. It’s been on the platform for five years.
We recently saw Bob Iger at the “Hamilton” 10th anniversary screening in Central Park and he openly admitted to us the huge success on Disney+, one of the most watched live action films on their platform, a huge increase in subscriptions when it came out on Broadway. And it’s had an extraordinary box office for a film that was released five years earlier on a streaming platform and the show is having this massive revival, not only because Leslie Odom Jr. is back and because of this celebration of its 10th anniversary, but because people have gotten to see it all over the world and now want to go see what it looks like live and how other talent interpret the show.
In addition to “Hamilton,” you also recently produced the filmed version of the revival of “Merrily We Roll” Along which is in theaters now for a limited time. What do you make of the rise of filmed captures of Broadway shows in recent years and what does the outlook for that content look like?
Sirulnick: It’s interesting because while “Hamilton” is still going on Broadway, “Merrily We Roll Along” was designed to be a short run. So this film is picking it up and continuing it. You can’t come to New York right now and see Merrily, but the film will carry on and is a new cinematic interpretation of what took place on stage.
We know that there are people around the country and around the world who are going to get to see this and we hope that they’re going to really connect with it as an incredible piece of work and as a film because it stands on its own as an incredible film that you’re going to see in a movie theater, or on streaming. For those who weren’t fortunate enough to be here in New York during the show’s nine months or have access to a ticket, they’re going to get to see these incredibly brilliant performances. And that’s really, really special.
Kamen: Not every show is necessarily applicable. We’ve had producers come and ask us to consider their show and we’ve gone to look and said, ‘It’s a marvelous show. It’s a fantastic production. It won’t interpret well in a 2D film.’ At the same time, it’s costly to do it well, to be respectful of all the unions and guilds and do it fairly.
The production is not for the light-hearted, nor is it for the investors, but the return and the reward I believe is going to be proven. While it’s taking time, the shows that we’ve done have been successful and they’ve also proven one of the most important things, which is that it has never cannibalized the appreciation for people wanting to go see it live. If anything it has enhanced it. So the investment is one that is a long tail and we think that will continue and we’re hoping that other producers and other shows will recognize the importance of doing the same for their productions.
I hope the distributors who are all busy consolidating themselves are going to start to see that these films have great value. We have the technology to actually preserve the original performances, including the talent themselves.
You also produced the Apple Vision Pro’s first feature length film “Bono: Stories of Surrender.” What was that experience like?
Kamen: It was a two-year long project. Nobody had made a full length feature film for the Vision Pro yet. Apple knows us quite well and entrusted us to try to figure out how one would do that.
We made two versions of that film. We made a second version that could be enjoyed on a traditional screen in your home or in a theater, as we had an amazing premiere of it at the Cannes Film Festival this year. But the version of it in the Vision Pro is the exact same film, the exact same story, but it was modified through the clever use of immersive technology to amazingly make for a very different experience. Sadly, not enough people have seen it in the Vision Pro, there aren’t enough Vision Pros out there, and it’s not caught on as much as everybody would have hoped that it would have, but I’m very proud of the fact that we tackled that challenge and, together with our various partners in the production of the film along with Plan B and some of our visual effects partners, solved problems that hadn’t been even tackled before.
It’s an essential process because whether they’re going to be more films made for that medium or not, there was a lot that we learned from a storytelling perspective. It doesn’t have to be an over exaggeration of 3D effects to make it special. It was a very carefully crafted use of a new technology and a judicial use of it that enhanced the storytelling of the project, and that’s something that we try to do as a signature of our work.
Speaking of experimenting with different mediums and technology, have you explored using AI?
Kamen: We use it as a tool judiciously. We’re respectful of human inspiration and human creation. The tool of AI is incredible and its potential is incredible, but I think that that is combined with human spirit and creativity and that’s where we draw the line. It’s an incredible aid to production, but we’re not comfortable with it from a standpoint of originality.
What’s your advice for someone looking to break into the industry? For professionals looking to advance in their career?
Kamen: For those who are in the business and those who are entering the business I’d almost say the same thing. You have to have incredible patience and be flexible enough to embrace the changes that are taking place. You also have to be perseverant enough to have belief in what you really believe in and continue to pursue those projects that sometimes seem almost impossible.It’s never easy and sometimes the greatest projects take the longest time to be realized.
We certainly recognize these are challenging times and for a young person who’s entering in the business, they have to be quite realistic and understand the challenges. But for all of us in the industry, we’re all faced with those challenges every day. Just think of the chaos that’s going on and Wall Street with the buying and selling of great media brands. You could wake up tomorrow morning under new ownership. So we navigate those waters all the time.
Sirulnick: I’d add that for somebody starting out, be open to doing a lot of different things. It’s not going to be a straight line. Take different jobs, learn from different people, TV, film, music, Broadway plays, be a writer, grab a camera, be an editor, pitch and conceive of things, help others make things. The journey definitely takes a winding route. It’s always been that way, but I think even more so now. It’s being open to that.
Kamen: Once you’ve entered into this business. you’re a forever student. You constantly have to learn and keep yourself updated. You can’t not be conscious of and focus on the use of new technology, the use of new tools and and the changes in the direction of the industry. We’re constantly studying and evaluating and experimenting.
Sirulnick: One of the things that we and people here at Radical share is a passion for filmmaking and storytelling. It’s about a sense of discovery and creativity, it’s about listening, it’s about trying new things and it’s about the attention to every detail and not really stopping until they tell us ‘Times up you’ve got to stop now because it’s got to be in a movie theater or on television.’ More importantly, it’s about pushing yourself and always trying to get the best out of ourselves and whatever the material is that we’re working on. Those are the people that we like to surround ourselves with.
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