MRC Film Chiefs Brye Adler and Jonathan Golfman on ‘Wuthering Heights,’ Bill Hader’s Horror Movie and Why Franchises ‘Have Hit a Wall’

MRC has established itself as a champion of innovative filmmakers like Edgar Wright, Emerald Fennell and Chloe Domont. But the movies these auteurs deliver defy categorization and that presents its own challenges.

“A lot of the movies we make don’t have a lot of obvious comps so they tend to be very difficult for the marketplace to properly evaluate,” admits Brye Adler, MRC’s co-president of film. “Something like ‘Wuthering Heights‘ is an R-rated period romantic drama, but describing it like that doesn’t reflect its potential to be distinctive, which is why it worked. Or you can’t put ‘Cruel Intentions’ and ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley in the same category, but that’s what ‘Saltburn’ is. The system does not compute what we make.”

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Instead of chasing the latest fads, MRC pursues the boldest talent. It’s a strategy that has largely paid off for the company, which has backed box office hits and critical successes like Wright’s “Baby Driver,” Domont’s “Fair Play,” Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction,” Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out,” and Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” and “Saltburn.” There have been misses too — the less said about “The Dark Tower” and “Mortal Engines” the better — but the track record is enviable and has established MRC as an artist friendly haven.

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The company has also undergone a period of growth, moving from releasing two to four films a year to between eight to 10 movies annually. This year, the company not only debuted “Wuthering Heights,” which went on to gross $242 million globally, but it expects to have as many as a half dozen movies hitting theaters or streaming by the end of 2026. They include “A Place in Hell,” a workplace thriller from Domont that stars Michelle Williams and Daisy Edgar-Jones; “Love Hypothesis,” a Prime Video rom-com with Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman; and “Unabomber,” a Netflix crime drama with Jacob Tremblay, Russell Crowe and Shailene Woodley. There’s also “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” a character study that earned raves for John Turturro when it premiered in Sundance, which Sony Pictures Classics will release in theaters during awards season.

“We’re still waiting on a bunch of things to be dated, but this is going to be a very busy fall for us,” says Jonathan Golfman, MRC’s co-president of film. “It’s something we’ve been building towards.”

The major obstacle that Golfman and Adler have faced is finding enough projects that are edgy and distinctive enough to produce.

“The biggest issue with scaling our business is that there aren’t enough great filmmakers bringing their latest movies to the marketplace at a steady enough pace,” says Golfman. “Then on top of that is how do you execute? Each one of these movies are their own delicate snowflakes, and so a lot of time and effort goes into making sure they can be the best versions of themselves.”

Often that means having difficult conversations with directors about what’s working and what needs to be left on the cutting room floor. Fennell praises Golfman and Adler for their “their advice, their taste, their instincts.”

“We can also be extremely honest with each other — often to the point of rudeness — which is the only way to make anything good,” Fennell says. “And both of them really make me laugh.”

“Knives Out,” a murder mystery that Johnson wrote and directed introduced audiences to Benoit Blanc, a flamboyant private investigator. It was a box office success when it premiered in theaters in 2019 and has spawned two sequels that debuted on Netflix in an unprecedented $450 million deal. But when Johnson was lining up the first film, he kept getting turned down until Golfman and Adler heard his pitch.

“They took risks on that movie,” says Ram Bergman, a producer on the “Knives Out” films and the founder of T-Street Productions. “Nobody at the time was making murder mysteries and people were skeptical and said it felt musty. But from the moment they read it, Brye and Johnny said, ‘we believe in this, we believe in you guys, and the rest is history.'”

The theatrical box office is up 13% in 2026, and films like “Project Hail Mary,” “Michael,” Obsession,” and “Backrooms” that aren’t part of preexisting franchises are driving the stronger ticket sales. Golfman and Adler believe it’s a sign that the business is changing. As superhero films, reboots and spinoffs get creaky, moviegoers are looking for stories that don’t feel like retreads or rehashes.

“I’m galvanized,” Adler says. “Audiences are desperately hungry for original stuff and they’re showing up for it. When something feels distinct and fresh, it’s working. I feel like the franchises and sequels have hit a wall.”

So far, MRC has partnered with major studios or streamers. But they have considered launching their own in-house distribution arm as Black Bear, another independent studio, did last year.

“We’ve kicked the tires on the idea,” admits Golfman. “The concern we’ve had is it’s hard to compete with the majors. They’ve been doing it for so long, and they have built such incredible teams and infrastructure. They have the ability to get a movie out there all over the world.”

The problem is that a wave of mergers is shrinking Hollywood’s footprint. Already, Fox merged with Disney and MGM was acquired by Amazon. Adler and Golfman are concerned about what the looming sale of Warner Bros. Discovery to Paramount could mean for their business model.

“Anytime that we as an industry could lose a distributor, it’s a bummer,” says Adler. “You want to have as many good and healthy buyers as possible.”

Going forward MRC has several projects in various stages of post-production and development that have both men energized, including Bill Hader’s feature directorial debut, “They Know.” “It lives in the horror genre, but it’s still got some humor,” Golfman teases.

And the goal is to continue to find projects that feel in their words, “authored,” and that approach a subject with a clear point of view instead of simply backing a movie because it’s from a genre that seems to be in fashion.

“The worst movies we’ve made have tended to happen when the driving motivation to do them was it felt like a smart business decision, but there wasn’t as strong a creative passion inside the company for the movie,” Adler says. “The rule is somebody here has to really love a project and have a fire for it.”

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