Brady Corbet Made 'Zero Profit' From 'The Brutalist'

Summary, context, and some ideas.

This newsletter is in response to the recently semi-viral news (at least in the production world) when The Brutalist director Brady Corbet shared that he’s made ‘zero profit’ from his latest film.

HERE’s the article in question, I’d recommend checking it out because it’s very interesting.

And HERE’s some context provided on whether or not Brady Corbet actually made no profit.

TLDR: His salary was (reportedly) around $250,000, which he reinvested into the film in order to shoot on VistaVision.

250K is a lot of money of course, but the first question is if this is enough money upfront for the 7+ years that the director spent working on the feature. The timeline in this case is unique of course, so I wouldn’t take it for analysis:

I would say most indie directors spend around two years full-time working on their projects. Let’s take a more standard independent feature film budget, say $5M - that’s half of $10 million (the budget of The Brutalist), so let’s divide Corbet’s pay in half too - we’re left with $125,000. I would say, even putting math aside, that standard upfront pay for a director on a $5M indie is indeed probably $100-200K. That money is pretty good money to live on for two years, especially if you’re not based in the States, UK, or Canada, and would cover most expenses the director might have in order to make the film, including any pricey travel. But here comes revelation №1 - purely based on upfront salary, most directors who work in independent features, even those who are known names and premiere at the biggest festivals in the world, don’t make bank.

However some directors these days have back-end deals, as did Brady Corbet reportedly. This is not the norm yet, but I strongly believe it should be - and things are slowly progressing in that direction. Now - I invite you to do a little more math with me:

The Brutalist has a budget of $10M and has currently grossed around $32M WW. Profitability-wise, excluding recouping the initial budget, the split with the cinemas, the distributor %, and the sales %, I’d say say we’re left with around $10M. Add another $5M from an streaming distribution deal (as stated by sources) and we’re left with around $15M Net roughly. Deadline estimates somewhere between $10-20M, so I’d say my math is pretty solid.

Corbet’s back-end would contractually almost certainly come in effect after any Net Profits paid out to the development, finance, production, and distribution companies, as well as the Executive Producers. We could really break this down, but in short: a 10% back-end deal is considered incredibly kushy for directors right now, so I would assume Corbet’s deal is likely at/under 5%. (I might theoretically be really really wrong here, I’m basing this off what’s somewhat standard right now, the case of The Brutalist could be very different.)

So, my guess would be he walks away with 5% of the final Net, so 5% of $15M, so $750,000. I would definitely exclude say $100,000 of that for Corbet’s various expenses around production that were not covered, so we’re left with $650,000.

But all-and-all, forgetting about money reinvested and expenses (which at the end of the day, Corbet did decide to invest/cover himself - I would’ve too, but it’s one’s own choice), the director of The Brutalist probably made a total of around $1M from the film.

It’s very important to note that Corbet has/will only make this (estimated) because of the success of the film and his back-end deal. So Corbet’s initial statement remains 100% truthful - in the 7+ years he spent making The Brutalist, he did make zero profit, having reinvested his own pay (a very standard practice for directors). He might have recouped $650K from the film in the end, but that’s only after the fact of the excruciatingly long and difficult process of actually making the film. And again, that’s only based on the success of the film - most indies do not make $32M WW at all, so most directors wouldn’t have as big a profit from their back-end deals.

And in either case, is $1M (total director pay, investments/expenses aside) enough for 7+ years of work, for the film that might win Best Picture, for work that won Corbet almost every directing award of this year? My personal opinion - it’s not enough purely based on the great success and profitability of the film, but $1M is still an obscene amount of money for an individual, especially such working in the film industry independently.

My fix would be slightly raising the upfront director salary, but also the industry-standard % for director back-end deals. 10% of Net seems fair, but why not even 15% or 20% based on circumstances? At the end of the day, Corbet was absolutely the driving force behind the project, so he does deserve the most benefits.

But also at the end of the day, Corbet will reap the most benefits, in terms of future career opportunities, reputation, and respect - which in this case will lead to a lot more money too. In the indie scene, there is a lot of gambling on yourself - I think what all this should reveal to us, ultimately, is that you need to gamble on yourself for a long time, a lot longer than one would think, until you can feel really really safe, both creatively, but also - and sometimes this is just as important - financially.