‘The Idea of You’ Producer Cathy Schulman Carries a Torch for Melodrama

Cathy Schulman has to really like something if she’s going to even try to get it made. As an independent producer in an increasingly constrained marketplace, actually filming something is an elusive endgame. “In the old days, producers would flip a book to studio or a network and say, ‘Will you buy it for me, develop it and make it into a movie?'” says Schulman, who optioned Robinne Lee’s novel The Idea of You alongside fellow producer Gabrielle Union years before ever presenting it to a suit. “That wasn’t going to work here.”

Fortunately, Anne Hathaway‘s interest in the romantic dramedy about a single mother who embarks on an unlikely relationship with the lead singer of a boy band (Nicholas Galitzine) helped ensure that Schulman’s efforts weren’t in vain. Amazon MGM Studios boarded the project in 2021, and it’s now streaming on Prime Video and appearing in select theaters. Over Zoom in April, Schulman spoke about making her latest feature, looked back on some of her more notable credits (Crash), offered her takes on Hollywood’s current aversion to green lights and discussed the Oscars’ 10 best picture nominees mandate — the latter of which she really isn’t a fan.

Not knowing how much this movie cost, it certainly feels like the kind of mid-budget movie we don’t get much of these days. How’d you get to a green light?

The more that my career goes on, the more I’ve realized that I really need to take on a huge amount of risk and develop projects internally for a good long time. Then, by the time I’m going out to the marketplace, I’m asking a company to make the movie and not develop it. On one hand, that makes for a very non-controversial development period because I’m my own boss. On the other hand, what if you do all that work and don’t actually sell it? For this, since we went to Amazon with the script developed and Anne already attached, the path from there wasn’t difficult.

Tell me about getting Anne Hathaway on board.

I pictured her from the beginning, and we tried to write the script to her — channel her energy in the character. Even though I always say to my staff, “If there’s one thing we never should do, it’s develop for a single actor. Because we’ll never get that actor.” Getting her was kind of a miracle. But she had mentioned to me that she wanted to do a movie that could loudly announce that she’s 40 and here to stay. She can still sparkle, still be sensual and sexual and everything. And we did shoot it in the year she was turning 40.

Do you think of this as a rom-com? 

Well, Amazon calls it a “romance seeker,” this genre they have. We call it a rom-com-drama.

Still, there’s been a renewed interest in the rom-com of late. How much were you thinking about this servicing that genre in a new way?

Very much. When I read the book, the fact that we were basically dealing with a rom-com is what got my interest. And in this particular case, the woman was not choosing between two men — which is the norm. She’s choosing between different versions of happiness. She was either going to self-actualize for the weekend in a yurt, or she was going to open herself up to love and adventure. I really liked the fact that either version would’ve been OK. Personally, when I was reading the book, I was like, “I would pick the yurt for sure.”

The Idea of You seems to have been buoyed by great word of mouth, out of South by Southwest of all places. Looking back, what other projects surprised you in terms of response?

Crash surprised me most. It was the little engine that could. That was a movie that I couldn’t get financed within the system at any company. It went fully finished to the film festival in Toronto, and nobody bought it. And it found its way after all of that. That we made it for $7 million, earned $100 million and won an Academy Award — a few of them, actually — that was a shocker for sure. 

What is your relationship with the people who are critical of the legacy of that best picture win?

Well, I don’t know that I have a relationship with any of them because no one’s ever said it to my face. (Laughs). I think they have an aversion to melodrama, an aversion to soapiness. It’s the same people that criticize Yellowstone. I’m a huge Shakespeare fan, and everything he ever did was melodrama, right? I don’t know when melodrama or extreme emotional drama became uncool, but I just don’t believe that. I keep seeing it work time and time again for audiences. I think we love to be moved from tears to laughter in extreme sweeps. I’m attracted to material like that, and people always tell me that I’m gutter diving. That’s what I think about that. Maybe it was also a little bit of backlash to having a movie be about racism. When I tried to get it made, I kept being told that racism was “passé.” 

I was in a meeting a couple years ago and an unnamed executive went into a rant about why the movie we were working on had to be better or else it was going to be a one-hit wonder like Crash  — totally forgetting that I had produced it. It was really funny to hear this rant about all the reasons why Crash was a movie that’s considered good but isn’t good. Like, it must’ve been weird confluence of events that made that movie win the Academy Award — except it was an incredible year for movies! It was Brokeback Mountain, Walk the Line [which was not nominated for best picture], Goodnight and Good Luck, Munich. And there were only five movie slots for best picture then.

What do you think of the mandate for 10 best picture nominees?

I don’t like it. I’m happy to be open about that because I don’t believe you can have 10 slots for best picture and only five for directors. That’s awful. To know that there are five directors every single year who direct movies that will be nominees for best picture and cannot be nominated themselves? It’s so brutally screwed up for an organization that’s intending to recognize our artistry. That idea was to try to bring in more viewership by including bigger films, but I just don’t think that algorithm works. And I don’t know of a year when 10 movies are exceptional enough to stand out. It makes everything less. I think it should go back to five.

Going back to the risks of being a producer, you’ve been at this a while. Are people exaggerating when they talk about how bad things are in Hollywood right now? 

It’s the worst I’ve seen. I still have a lot of optimism that it’ll bounce back because I do believe that this whole endeavor of filmed content is kind of like the crocus in the snow. It always pokes its head out one way or another — even when it’s getting smushed — but the contraction and consolidation are significant. The strikes were much more damaging than anticipated. What’s always concerning in a time like this, when things get rough economically, is the conservatism of decision-making that tends to come back. People want to take fewer risks, do what they’ve done before. The thing we never seem to learn is that then when we do that copycatting, it backfires. The audience rejects it. 

More optimistically, what lesson did you take from the success of The Woman King?

I was really excited to be part of the first studio movie to star an ensemble of dark-skinned Black women. That was a huge achievement. Getting that green light was the most momentous thing to me. And I love that people love the movie. Economically, I wish it had done even better than it did. It did very well in the United States, but I wish it had done better internationally. The real sign of success for The Woman King would be if they green-light another movie like it.

How did you end up writing and showrunning the Showtime miniseries, The First Lady? You had no prior writing credits.

It was my first time out of the proverbial closet. I’ve always been the kind of producer who does a lot of intensive writing work with my writers and very often writes into scripts — as long as they’re comfortable with it. On First Lady, we were meeting Gary Levine and Kevin Beggs, who were running Showtime and Lionsgate Television. They complimented a particular scene, and my writing partner Aaron Cooley said, “Just compliment Cathy on that one. She wrote it.” There was this mic drop moment where both studio heads said, “Are you in the Writers Guild?” Uh, no? (Laughs.) 

At what point did you join the WGA?

That day, when they told me I had to. What’s funny is that during the strike, there was this misconception that writers were striking against producers — because that ridiculous organization is called the AMPTP. It should be the AMPTC because it’s not an association of producers. It’s an association of companies. People were like, “How could you be so mean to writers?” I felt like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz! But it was really interesting because I could go to the Writers Guild meetings and hear all their complaints because I’m now one of these people who is both.

It’s wild that the show came out only two years ago, and Showtime basically doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s tragic. I love Showtime. It technically still exists under new management, but the concept’s gone.