Jonathan Sothcott has a busy slate ahead in the coming year and he stopped by to chat with us about it for our final interview of 2024.
Hi Jonathan, great to chat with you. You’ve got some exciting titles coming up next year. I’m especially looking forward to Knightfall starring Ian Ogilvy, Geoffrey Moore, Michael Paré and of course Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott. Any word on when it will get a release date and when we can expect a full trailer?
I’m looking forward to it too! In a lot of ways it is that rare thing – a personal film for me in that obviously I’m a James Bond aficionado, well really a Roger Moore aficionado. Geoffrey Moore has been a friend for a long time and we have talked about making a movie for over a decade – he and Roger both saw some of my older movies like We Still Kill The Old Way and since then he was very keen – but we only get one shot at this so it had to be the right film. An action packed espionage thriller is definitely the right film. Geoffrey is a very handsome and charismatic man but it wouldn’t be enough if he were a non-actor – but he’s been acting since he was a child (you can see him in the opening credits of The Persuaders!) – in the Sherlock Holmes TV movie with his father and Patrick MacNee, in action films in the 80s and 90s. But other things have occupied his time – his music career, his success as a restauranteur. So timing has been everything on this movie. It started out as a pitch for a father/daughter home invasion movie vehicle for Jeanine and Ian Ogilvy but it was always missing that third main character and Geoffrey was the secret ingredient.
One of the things that makes Knightfall stand out is that it has a unique identity – a female-driven British espionage thriller isn’t something you see every day and the market is currently oversaturated with very samey stuff. Jeanine’s character Ros, whose story it very much is, is the daughter of this legendary old school spy catcher (played by Ian Ogilvy) but they’ve been estranged and she’s kicked back – she works in weapons tech in a lab, she believes wars should be fought with drones and AI – but when the chips are down she can still take names and kick ass – but without it descending into that Marvel level of comic book fighting. She’s absolutely superb in the film, I’m so proud of her. And Geoffrey and Jeanine are both relatively fresh faces – it’s not just the same old faces looking bored like a lot of action movies, they’re two great natural actors with boundless charisma and something different to give – and backed up by Ian Ogilvy, who always adds a touch of class. And Michael Paré really did me a favour with his cameo – he’s an actor I admire immensely, Streets of Fire is one of my favourites, and he’s such a gentleman to work with, a real pro – but we didn’t want to waste him on a spit and a cough cameo, we gave him something very, very cool. If I could have Michael in every movie I would.
The secret weapon in Knightfall though is fight co-ordinator Darren Le Fevre – I don’t think there’s a more talented stunt guy in our space in the UK and I’m sure he’s going to get snapped up on much bigger movies any day. We have a lot of the same reference points and a love of classic action movies – I really wish I could have got him on Renegades to work with Lee Majors and Louis Mandylor. Next time. Darren worked really well with Jeanine, she has some great fight scenes in the movie including one with Michael P which they all rehearsed meticulously – it was a pleasure watching three highly skilled practitioners blocking that out.
I’m working on the edit right now, the plan is for it to launch at the Berlin Film Market in February 2025 – we have 2 days of pick ups to do so it’s very close. I’m listening to music cues from the composer at the moment (the film will have a full orchestral score). I’d imagine we’ll drop a trailer at some point in Q1 2025 – it’s a real crowd pleaser this one, punches well above it’s weight. And as it seems another James Bond movie is a long, long way off, maybe this will satisfy those missing the old school Bond films (though to be clear it is a little indie thriller, not a studio action film!!).
The Secret of Guy Fawkes sounds intriguing; can you share some details on that?
Yes – Guy Fawkes is a very cool horror project that we have – which is being written by Simon Cluett (We Still Steal The Old Way) and directed by David Gregory (Zombies of the Third Reich) for a Spring 2025 shoot. Very high energy director: love him, excited to work with him properly. It positions Guy Fawkes as a very evil man looking to wipe out the British parliament, not a freedom fighter, whose spirit is stalking and killing the descendants of those who put him to death. So don’t expect V For Vendetta! It has a Da Vinci Code component to it as well as the straightforward supernatural slasher stuff. Everything we are trying to do at the moment has to be just that little bit elevated – 6 kids in a house with a masked killer isn’t enough anymore, you have to really stand out in the market and that’s what we’re aiming to do – take that middle ground between the ITN public domain movies and Blumhouse which is substantial.
Loving the look of Werewolf Hunt; the practical effects are always welcome. What stage is that at and how would you describe it?
Well we have the Werewolf suits! We had them made in America bespoke for the movie, which is a mix of Dog Soldiers, Predator and The Beast Must Die. Werewolf Hunt is about a reclusive billionaire who assembles a cadre of the world’s greatest hunters and killers to trap and execute the Werewolf that has been haunting his family – the ultimate Big Game.
The creature suits are absolutely stunning – we tested one on the set of Doctor Plague and nearly scared a passerby to death – which is a good sign I guess (luckily he didn’t sue)! I really love Werewolf movies and grew up on the Howling series as video staples (ours have a little of the Howling 4 look about them) at a time when action was dominating the VHS market, so you can see the influences. This is a real fun, high octane action horror – it does exactly what it says on the tin, there’s not an inch of fat on the script, it just doesn’t let up. I’m casting at the minute and will begin shooting in the next 6 weeks, to launch at AFM in November. I’d never have done this with CGI werewolves, I just don’t like them. You look at Bad Moon, Late Phases or Steve Miller’s recent Werewolves and there’s just something about giant tangible lycanthropes that can’t be beaten. Add in a team of decidedly eclectic hunters, including a mafia assassin and a cannibalistic female serial killer and this is something people are going to love. If you like Werewolves and Guns, this is the film for you.
How hands on do you like to be as a producer? Do you visit the set often or do you leave it to the filmmakers?
Hahaha. I am the filmmaker! Since I started Shogun I have never missed a day on set – and as the business has grown, I am more and more hands on and have learned to make my voice clearer on the floor – I love these movies and when I need to be vocal I am. For many years I had fallen out of love with the business but the last 4 years, even though it’s getting harder and harder, I am absolutely driven to make Shogun the market leader, to make the best possible films we can on the budget available to us and to deliver for our audience. You can’t do that from the bar. It has been a little slower than I’d have liked and the market has been rocky, but we now have a 40% film tax rebate in Britain and I think we’re at the dawn of a new age of quality low budget genre films coming out of the UK.
There isn’t one part of the process that I am not forensically involved in – from inception through to development, I work with the writers very closely. I do the hiring (and occasionally firing) and I also do all the casting. I’m very involved in costume, locations, production design, all of it. We have a significant store of props and costumes which is constantly growing to limit how much we need to hire. These shoots are hard – normally at night, often in vile English weather and it isn’t fair to ask people to work in those conditions if I’m not in the thick of it with them. Warm coats are essential!
What’s the first step you take when beginning a new project?
We don’t accept unsolicited material so a new project usually starts with just an idea, a concept. The first person I talk to is normally Jeanine, just for a gut instinct immediate reaction – her sensibilities aren’t the same as mine, so it really is a different perspective. She’s my MVP in that sense.
It will always then be to talk to distributors and gauge their appetite for it – there just isn’t room for risk anymore. I was just reading a trade article describing the UK market for indie films as a “shit show” and it isn’t far wrong – but we no longer focus on the UK, it’s just one of many territories making up the global jigsaw now. I have a great relationship with 101 Films/Trinity here in the UK and am very happy doing our stuff with them – they are classy and commercial and treat our films with the appropriate amount of respect. I also work with an international sales company in LA, so between them I get the feedback I need to either endorse my instinct or make me reconsider. I’ve been doing it long enough that the instinct is pretty good but it’s better when it’s my own stuff, eg stuff we have generated in house with our writers – sometimes with third party projects you can’t see the wood for the trees: so we just don’t take them.
Once distribution say yes I have to find the right writer, assuming the idea hasn’t come from one. Recently I’ve been enjoying working with Simon Cluett, Dominic Philpot and Robert Dunn. Harry Boxley is another great UK writer. Once we have a script, we find a director, which is the hardest part – Shogun is very much a producer-lead business which some filmmakers find hard to get on board with. There are exceptions to this – for example Helloween, Phil Claydon wrote it and I tried to give him as much creative freedom as I could and just support him. To land a director of his caliber at our budget level is almost unique and the film is a testament to that. But it was a (great) story he wanted to tell I don’t think he’d just have rocked up to shoot any old horror script I’d given him! But what was special about him – as well as his huge talent and practicality – is he ‘got it’ in terms of the budget limitations. He really did make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear rather than just asking for 6 more ears.
How do you stay inspired when dealing with challenges?
Making indie films is like going to war every single day. Doing anything on a limited budget is obviously hard, but throwing more money at a problem doesn’t work in the long term: creative solutions are needed. We made 4 films since Summer 2023 and did pre-shoots on a 5th and it has been hard – investors drop out last minute, people let you down, locations go sour, it either never stops raining or is too hot, actors don’t know their lines. People think they are better than their material and don’t make an effort. Distributors go bust. R&D credits get delayed. In the UK there is definitely a snobbery towards low budget genre films. People ask me sniffily “don’t you want to make bigger films” and the answer is no – bigger films means wasting money and bigger problems, we have our model. Sometimes people sniffily say I’m like Roger Corman and I take that as a huge compliment – I give people a lot of opportunities (my first DOP recently won the Best Cinematography Oscar for All Quiet On The Western Front), but I understand they want to move on and grow. If you want making movies to be a problem it can be nothing else – I can certainly see why a lot of people only ever make one film. But on the other hand, I pinch myself every day because we are getting up and going to make a MOVIE and I fucking LOVE them – that’s what keeps me going.
Also this is another aspect of the business where Jeanine is so crucial because she’s the eyes in the back of my head and the wise counsel who can look at things from a different, sometimes more objective point of view. Sometimes people think she’s just an actress in our movies: underestimate her like that at your peril, she’s the heart of Shogun Films.
How has streaming impacted film production?
Not well, that’s for sure – though the rise of AVOD, particularly Tubi and Youtube is offering a gradual correction after the collapse of physical media. Unfortunately the two deadly viewing trends – people binge watching 12 hours of a Netflix show that cost $100m or conversely 2 minutes of gibberish on TikTok – leaves some people struggling to readjust to a 90 minute contained narrative format. I meet some young people whose attention span just can’t cope with a feature length presentation. But I think the Marvel (and similar) films are just as much to blame – they’re just big flashing CGI video games with the odd break for some acting from humans – and they are massively over-saturated. When I was a kid, there were 3 Star Wars movies. They were so unique and special that even Ewoks Caravan of Courage seemed like a wonderful gilded treat. Now you open the fridge and a new Star Wars show falls out. It’s not special now, it’s just content. I totally understand why we’re told the Broccoli family have pulled the handbrake on 007 – it’s really the last untarnished mega brand IP in movies.
But I meet and talk to people every day who tell me they still want to watch good, old fashioned indie genre movies. Good stories, great acting, no pretence – just fun. We’re not chasing the approval of the Skibidi Rizz kids – we’re not for them. We’re for the people who miss Blockbuster Video – and thankfully there are many, many millions of them.
How do you balance creative freedom with financial constraints?
You write the script to the budget, not the other way round. It is the ONLY way to make genre films well and profitably. If you write stuff you can’t afford, it will look awful on screen and you are laming your movie from the get go. Write ‘em smart and lean and create set pieces that don’t need millions of extras. I’ll give you an example – there’s an old Cushing and Lee movie called Horror Express which I absolutely love. One of the most underrated horrors of the 1970s. And it was conceived because the producer bought the intricate model trains used in Nicolas & Alexandra and thought they’d be enough production value for a movie – so he had a couple of interior train carriages built and put on springs and off they went. That is a truly inspirational bit of producing.
When can we expect to see Doctor Plague and Helloween?
Both are due to land late Spring 2025 – Helloween is done and sold and we’ll be announcing all the wheres and whens imminently – I absolutely cannot wait for everyone to see that, it really is an exceptional horror movie with some great performances. Plague we’re in post production on, I think we have a very cool new villain in our serial killing cult of zealots and it boasts a superb central performance from my old pal Martin Kemp (someone else I wish could be in every movie – working with him again after a break of some years was a highlight of 2025). With these two we are setting the bar very high for ourselves at Shogun.
What else do you have coming up that we haven’t discussed?
We have a female-centric vampire movie called Midnight Kiss, very tight Simon Cluett script, does something different: a little bit The Hunger, a little bit Innocent Blood. A horror called Harbinger, which is about a haunted Zoltar style fortune telling machine. An underground London fighting movie called Killer Instinct which will be a vehicle for a new action star we’re building up. We’re going to do a modern take on Bram Stoker’s Jewel of Seven Stars towards the end of 2025. I’d like to do another action film with Geoffrey Moore, I think there’ll be an appetite for it after Knightfall. There are others too but more will be revealed in the New Year.
Thanks very much. Have a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.
And thank you my friend for everything you do not just for me but for the whole genre movie community – trust me we all devour the articles on your site vociferously and talk about them. With fewer and fewer magazines and the resultant drop off in quality film journalism, sites like yours are the absolute life blood connection between us and our audience.