Imagine Entertainment Leaders on ‘Spaceballs 2,’ Rebooting ’24,’ ‘The Grinch’ and ‘Friday Night Lights,’ and Making a Movie Set in a Whale’s Belly
For 40 years, Imagine Entertainment has been virtually synonymous with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, the company’s Oscar-winning co-founders. And even as they remain at the helm of the media company they created, they have empowered a team of younger executives to help them continue to grow their film and television businesses, while also branching out more aggressively into documentaries and branded content.
“We’re really proud of this next generation of leadership,” says Justin Wilkes, who was named president of Imagine Entertainment in 2023.
It’s a group that includes Imagine Features President Jeb Brody, who joined the company in 2024 from Amblin; Imagine Documentaries President Sara Bernstein, who came over to help launch the division in 2018 from HBO; and President of Imagine Brands, IP & Partnerships Marc Gilbar and Executive Vice President of Brands & Business Development Amanda Farrand, who entered the picture in 2018 and 2023, respectively, as the company bolstered its relationships with top corporations looking for innovative ways to raise their profiles. They’ve been tasked with navigating a changed Hollywood landscape, one in which streaming services are the dominant way people watch movies and shows, and new tools like AI are threatening to upend the way entertainment is produced and monetized.
“There’s always been new technologies, right?” Wilkes says. “There’s been digital cinema, DVDs, and all kinds of disrupters. But the power of a great story, that’s what everybody’s going to point to going forward. We want to make movies or television shows or a documentaries that unite people, that celebrate underdogs, that celebrate brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and that lmake you feel a little bit better coming out than you did when you started watching them.”
Imagine first came to prominence making a wide-range of humanistic movies, many of them directed by Howard and produced by Grazer. It’s a collection of popular films that includes everything from “Cocoon” to “A Beautiful Mind,” “Parenthood” to “Backdraft,” “American Gangster” to “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” The duo are still intimately involved in running the company and making new films (they discussed their long-time partnership in a Q&A with Variety). And they are also eager to find and develop stories that can reach a mass audience in a fractured media ecosystem.
“Audiences have evolved,” Howard says. “But we are eager to learn where they’re going and see how we can work with that. The heartbeat of what we care about is to engage viewers in an emotional journey.”
On the television front, Imagine is backing a wide range of original programs, as well reboots of some of its most biggest hits and talk shows like “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman.” For Peacock, the company is re-imagining the cult comedy, “The ‘Burbs,” with Keke Palmer and Jack Whitehall as a married couple who move into a family-friendly neighborhood only to discover there’s something sinister behind its well-manicured facade.
“It’s told through the perspective of a Black female,” says Wilkes. “So it’s a similar storyline as the Tom Hanks movie, but it turns it upside down.”
Imagine also convinced Peter Berg and Jason Katims to return to the world of high school sports with a reboot of “Friday Night Lights.”
“This new version is set in a Texas town that a tornado had destroyed, and the community has to rebuild,” Wilkes says. “Those are all themes that are very relevant today. You know, look at the floods that happened in Texas not that long. It just felt like that’s a reason to go back into the IP and come up with a new story.”
And Wilkes believes that the time is right for a return of “24,” the propulsive thriller that became a sensation in the early aughts.
“It’s a little bit informal at this point, but if you look at Russia, Ukraine and just the theater of Europe right now, the world needs Jack Bauer,” he says.
It’s unclear if Bauer will battle baddies as part of a series or a movie. If he does go the feature route, he may be taking one of his biggest risks yet. The film business faces stiff headwinds — the box office has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, and studios are focusing most of their resources on comic book movies and videogame adaptations. Those aren’t the kind of films that Imagine specializes in producing (its movies tend to be $50 million to $70 million affairs that are geared at adults). Yet, the company has nearly a half dozen movies in various stages of production and an active development pipeline. Brody says that they’ve been able to stay busy by finding stories that have a compelling hook.
“You’ve got to be unique,” Brody says. “You’ve got to be different. You’ve got to do something that nobody’s ever seen before. They need to be cluster busters with something you can market.”
In the case of one of their upcoming films, an adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ novel “Whalefall,” that “cluster buster” angle is a premise that sounds like “Pinocchio” mixed with “127 Hours” — a diver is swallowed by a sperm whale and has only 60 minutes to escape.
“The majority of the movie takes place inside the belly of a whale,” Brody says. “I don’t know that I could have made that movie 15 years ago. But at this moment, I can because it’s so different than anything anybody has seen before.”
There’s also a Snoop Dogg biopic from the makers of “8 Mile,” as well as “How to Rob a Bank,” an upcoming heist thriller with Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai, Pete Davidson and Zoë Kravitz; “Alone at Dawn,” a war film with Adam Driver that Howard directs, and “Spaceballs 2,” a follow-up to the Mel Brooks cult favorite. “‘Spaceballs’ is all about joy and and silliness,” Brody says.
Those will all be theatrical releases, unlike “The Mosquito Bowl,” the story of a football game that took place on the eve of the Okinawa invasion and involved former football stars who enlisted in the Marines following Pearl Harbor. That movie will debut on Netflix. “It’s a profound version of a war film,” Brody says.
The Imagine team is also looking at past hits to revisit.
“There are conversations around what to do with ‘The Grinch,'” Brody says. “There are conversations around ‘Liar, Liar.’ There are conversations that we’re having around a lot of this IP that we own.”
Imagine has moved aggressively into the documentary space, producing acclaimed films about cultural icons like Julia Child, Judy Blume, Barbara Walters and Luciano Pavarotti. Bernstein says that Howard and Grazer have tapped their rolodex to encourage people to participate in these intimate looks at their lives and careers.
“We work really hard on access, we tend not to really do unauthorized personality projects,” Bernstein says. “I don’t think we come at it like, ‘this is an expose.’ It’s: ‘you tell us your story.'”
Imagine is at work on several documentaries including Rory Kennedy’s follow-up to “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” and a project based on Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation,” a look at rising rates of mental illness in children. But the company has not been immune to the challenges facing the non-fiction business. Streamers has invested heavily in the space, but as the media industry has constricted, they’ve made cut backs. Bernstein says not only are they commissioning fewer films; they’re also insisting they be made for less money.
“For us, it’s always about what’s the opportunity within this consolidation,” Bernstein says.
The collapse of cable and the decline of the theatrical film business have made it more challenging for companies like Imagine to turn a profit. That’s led Imagine to work hard to find new sources of revenue. It’s been a pioneer in the branded content space, working with the likes of Coca-Cola, P&G and Ford. Projects have ranged from short films that are intended to play on social media to feature-length documentaries such as “The Day Sports Stood Still,” a look at the global shutdown of pro sports in wake of the coronavirus that was produced with Nike, and “Dads,” an examination of fatherhood that Bryce Dallas Howard made in conjunction with Unilever. In both cases the brands made a profit on their investment when the films sold to HBO and Apple TV+.
Companies are also exploring turning their products into narrative features.
“Post ‘Barbie,’ we have started to see more and more brands interested in taking a big swing at a scripted film,” says Gilbar.
In order to land the big clients, it helps that Imagine has its own brand identity.
“We’re a media company that is all about telling inspiring stories of humanity,” says Farrand.
Over 40 years, it’s been Howard and Grazer who have helped Imagine remain relevant by finding and developing those types of films and shows.
“They both bring different superpowers to their partnership,” says Michael Rosenberg, former co-chairman of Imagine. “I’ll give you a sports analogy. Kareem and Magic were great by themselves, but when they were together, they were a combination unlike any other. The same is true of Ron and Brian.”
“We’re really proud of this next generation of leadership,” says Justin Wilkes, who was named president of Imagine Entertainment in 2023.
It’s a group that includes Imagine Features President Jeb Brody, who joined the company in 2024 from Amblin; Imagine Documentaries President Sara Bernstein, who came over to help launch the division in 2018 from HBO; and President of Imagine Brands, IP & Partnerships Marc Gilbar and Executive Vice President of Brands & Business Development Amanda Farrand, who entered the picture in 2018 and 2023, respectively, as the company bolstered its relationships with top corporations looking for innovative ways to raise their profiles. They’ve been tasked with navigating a changed Hollywood landscape, one in which streaming services are the dominant way people watch movies and shows, and new tools like AI are threatening to upend the way entertainment is produced and monetized.
“There’s always been new technologies, right?” Wilkes says. “There’s been digital cinema, DVDs, and all kinds of disrupters. But the power of a great story, that’s what everybody’s going to point to going forward. We want to make movies or television shows or a documentaries that unite people, that celebrate underdogs, that celebrate brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and that lmake you feel a little bit better coming out than you did when you started watching them.”
Imagine first came to prominence making a wide-range of humanistic movies, many of them directed by Howard and produced by Grazer. It’s a collection of popular films that includes everything from “Cocoon” to “A Beautiful Mind,” “Parenthood” to “Backdraft,” “American Gangster” to “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” The duo are still intimately involved in running the company and making new films (they discussed their long-time partnership in a Q&A with Variety). And they are also eager to find and develop stories that can reach a mass audience in a fractured media ecosystem.
“Audiences have evolved,” Howard says. “But we are eager to learn where they’re going and see how we can work with that. The heartbeat of what we care about is to engage viewers in an emotional journey.”
On the television front, Imagine is backing a wide range of original programs, as well reboots of some of its most biggest hits and talk shows like “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman.” For Peacock, the company is re-imagining the cult comedy, “The ‘Burbs,” with Keke Palmer and Jack Whitehall as a married couple who move into a family-friendly neighborhood only to discover there’s something sinister behind its well-manicured facade.
“It’s told through the perspective of a Black female,” says Wilkes. “So it’s a similar storyline as the Tom Hanks movie, but it turns it upside down.”
Imagine also convinced Peter Berg and Jason Katims to return to the world of high school sports with a reboot of “Friday Night Lights.”
“This new version is set in a Texas town that a tornado had destroyed, and the community has to rebuild,” Wilkes says. “Those are all themes that are very relevant today. You know, look at the floods that happened in Texas not that long. It just felt like that’s a reason to go back into the IP and come up with a new story.”
And Wilkes believes that the time is right for a return of “24,” the propulsive thriller that became a sensation in the early aughts.
“It’s a little bit informal at this point, but if you look at Russia, Ukraine and just the theater of Europe right now, the world needs Jack Bauer,” he says.
It’s unclear if Bauer will battle baddies as part of a series or a movie. If he does go the feature route, he may be taking one of his biggest risks yet. The film business faces stiff headwinds — the box office has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, and studios are focusing most of their resources on comic book movies and videogame adaptations. Those aren’t the kind of films that Imagine specializes in producing (its movies tend to be $50 million to $70 million affairs that are geared at adults). Yet, the company has nearly a half dozen movies in various stages of production and an active development pipeline. Brody says that they’ve been able to stay busy by finding stories that have a compelling hook.
“You’ve got to be unique,” Brody says. “You’ve got to be different. You’ve got to do something that nobody’s ever seen before. They need to be cluster busters with something you can market.”
In the case of one of their upcoming films, an adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ novel “Whalefall,” that “cluster buster” angle is a premise that sounds like “Pinocchio” mixed with “127 Hours” — a diver is swallowed by a sperm whale and has only 60 minutes to escape.
“The majority of the movie takes place inside the belly of a whale,” Brody says. “I don’t know that I could have made that movie 15 years ago. But at this moment, I can because it’s so different than anything anybody has seen before.”
There’s also a Snoop Dogg biopic from the makers of “8 Mile,” as well as “How to Rob a Bank,” an upcoming heist thriller with Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai, Pete Davidson and Zoë Kravitz; “Alone at Dawn,” a war film with Adam Driver that Howard directs, and “Spaceballs 2,” a follow-up to the Mel Brooks cult favorite. “‘Spaceballs’ is all about joy and and silliness,” Brody says.
Those will all be theatrical releases, unlike “The Mosquito Bowl,” the story of a football game that took place on the eve of the Okinawa invasion and involved former football stars who enlisted in the Marines following Pearl Harbor. That movie will debut on Netflix. “It’s a profound version of a war film,” Brody says.
The Imagine team is also looking at past hits to revisit.
“There are conversations around what to do with ‘The Grinch,'” Brody says. “There are conversations around ‘Liar, Liar.’ There are conversations that we’re having around a lot of this IP that we own.”
Imagine has moved aggressively into the documentary space, producing acclaimed films about cultural icons like Julia Child, Judy Blume, Barbara Walters and Luciano Pavarotti. Bernstein says that Howard and Grazer have tapped their rolodex to encourage people to participate in these intimate looks at their lives and careers.
“We work really hard on access, we tend not to really do unauthorized personality projects,” Bernstein says. “I don’t think we come at it like, ‘this is an expose.’ It’s: ‘you tell us your story.'”
Imagine is at work on several documentaries including Rory Kennedy’s follow-up to “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” and a project based on Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation,” a look at rising rates of mental illness in children. But the company has not been immune to the challenges facing the non-fiction business. Streamers has invested heavily in the space, but as the media industry has constricted, they’ve made cut backs. Bernstein says not only are they commissioning fewer films; they’re also insisting they be made for less money.
“For us, it’s always about what’s the opportunity within this consolidation,” Bernstein says.
The collapse of cable and the decline of the theatrical film business have made it more challenging for companies like Imagine to turn a profit. That’s led Imagine to work hard to find new sources of revenue. It’s been a pioneer in the branded content space, working with the likes of Coca-Cola, P&G and Ford. Projects have ranged from short films that are intended to play on social media to feature-length documentaries such as “The Day Sports Stood Still,” a look at the global shutdown of pro sports in wake of the coronavirus that was produced with Nike, and “Dads,” an examination of fatherhood that Bryce Dallas Howard made in conjunction with Unilever. In both cases the brands made a profit on their investment when the films sold to HBO and Apple TV+.
Companies are also exploring turning their products into narrative features.
“Post ‘Barbie,’ we have started to see more and more brands interested in taking a big swing at a scripted film,” says Gilbar.
In order to land the big clients, it helps that Imagine has its own brand identity.
“We’re a media company that is all about telling inspiring stories of humanity,” says Farrand.
Over 40 years, it’s been Howard and Grazer who have helped Imagine remain relevant by finding and developing those types of films and shows.
“They both bring different superpowers to their partnership,” says Michael Rosenberg, former co-chairman of Imagine. “I’ll give you a sports analogy. Kareem and Magic were great by themselves, but when they were together, they were a combination unlike any other. The same is true of Ron and Brian.”