Director of major 2025 Oscar contender was told movie was ‘undistributable’

The filmmaker spoke to JOE about the epic which won three Golden Globes last week and is earning comparisons to The Godfather.

Co-written and directed by Brady Corbet (Vox Lux), the 215-minute-long drama epic revolves around Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor and visionary architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) who arrives in the US in 1947 in the hopes of rebuilding his life and his work there.

Initially living in poverty, Tóth eventually meets the wealthy and prominent industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) who recognises his talent for building.

Van Buren commissions the architect to build a grand community centre in Philadelphia, a sprawling process that will take years.

Initially delighted by the work, Tóth comes to realise that power and legacy "come at a heavy cost".

Co-written by Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist's massive in-scope story about the struggles immigrants can face - combined with the big, bold direction and the stunning performances by its ensemble cast - result in a film that feels as towering as the monument Tóth is hired to erect.

It's no surprise that the movie has emerged as a major contender, has already won three Golden Globes (including for Best Drama and Best Director) and is earning comparisons to The Godfather.

Despite this vast acclaim, The Brutalist faced a lot of challenges to get made - as Corbet told JOE in an interview ahead of the movie's release.

Partly this was down to Covid-19. The movie was initially announced in 2020 with a much different cast before the pandemic caused shooting delays, resulting in an actor shake-up.

As Corbet told us: "It was predominantly Covid that really kept taking us down. I mean, we got kneecapped at least three times, maybe four.

"I actually travelled somewhere to start pre-production and then it would all fall apart again for various reasons."

But there were other challenges as well. In his winning speech at the Golden Globe for Best Drama, Corbet opened up about how he was told The Brutalist was "undistributable", "that no one would come out and see it" and that it "wouldn't work".

When JOE spoke to Corbet, we asked him what specific issues people had with the movie and when in the development of The Brutalist this happened.

"Throughout the entire process," the co-writer and director said, before adding:

"There was a period where the film was submitted to the 20 to 30 companies that tend to finance films in this kind of $10-15 million range, which was the amount of money that we were looking for.

"But essentially, really everyone passed on the film and then throughout the process, there were a lot of folks that were, let's just say, 'very concerned' about the film's runtime and I think that people were just concerned about the film in general because it doesn't really fit into a box that tidily.

"That said, we had many extraordinary champions and I am forever indebted to my producers on this project who produced the film alongside me because they never wavered. They always had the courage of their convictions.

"I would just like to take the opportunity to really prop them up because they took big big risks, very big personal risks financially speaking.

"I'm mostly just thrilled that for them and for the rest of my team that those risks on this particular project have paid off."

Also, during the conversation - when discussing the difficulties The Brutalist faced getting made - Corbet said:

"Every film is so challenging to make right now. If you're making a 90-minute movie that is considerably less ambitious than this one, it's still an extraordinary challenge to get off the ground.

"So when this comes across a lot of folks' desks that are there to try to suss out on behalf of their company what could possibly be successful, they tend to make decisions that are pretty risk averse in an effort to protect their jobs - which is easy enough to understand."

Brady Corbet at the Golden Globes with The Brutalist

Corbet also said he finds it interesting that, in spite of this, the movies that are a part of this season's awards conversation are "all pretty radical".

"I think that it's extraordinary to see that the majority of the movies are independent, the majority of the films are original and the stuff which is the contrary has been sort of iced out," he added.

"Clearly audiences are thirsty for films that have a signature, that are unique, that are daring. And yet I think that's anti-intuitive for a lot of the folks that are empowered to greenlight these projects."

Speaking about what he would like to see more of in Hollywood, he stated: "I personally think that we should be making more daring films for somewhat less money - a reasonable amount of money, where people are actually paid what they're worth.

"But spending hundreds of millions of dollars over and over again, unless it is a very very special project, is largely unnecessary and excessive."

The Brutalist is out in UK cinemas on 24 January.

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