Before the Door Pictures is a media production company that was founded in 2008 by Zachary Quinto, Neal Dodson, and Corey Moosa, all three Carnegie Mellon University drama graduates.
Partners/Producers: Zachary Quinto, Neal Dodson, Corey Moosa
Filmography:
Abandoned
Biopunk (TV)
Brenner
Lucid
Mr. Murder Is Dead
Vivien Hasn’t Been Herself Lately
Never Here 2017
Aardvark 2017
A Must Violent Year 2014
The Chair (TV) 2014
Banshee Chapter 2013
All Is Lost 2013
Breakup at a Wedding 2013
Periods. 2013
Margin Call 2911
In the Media:
Zachary Quinto Reluctantly Seeks Help From Jenny Slate in ‘Aardvark’ (Exclusive Video) | Hollywood Report | April 20, 2017
Zachary Quinto’s Josh Norman has a problem.
“I have a condition. I have since I was 19,” Josh tells his therapist, Emily (Jenny Slate), in the above exclusive clip from Aardvark. “It doesn’t have a name, or at least all of the conditions that do have names aren’t a great match.”
Josh says that he does “perfectly fine at life.” But Emily counters that he “must want help” if he’s seeing her.
Aardvark, co-starring Jon Hamm, is set to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this Friday (April 21).
The movie, written and directed by Brian Shoaf in his feature debut, follows Josh as his estranged brother, Craig (Hamm), a well-known TV actor, returns home for the first time in years. Stuck in his brother’s shadow and haunted by it, Josh seeks help from Emily, who develops her own connection to Craig.
Quinto and producing partner Neal Dodson produced Aardvark via their Before the Door Pictures banner, which has also produced films such as Margin Call, All Is Lost and A Most Violent Year. Susan Leber, who previously worked with Quinto and Dodson on Margin Call, also served as a producer.
Shoaf and Before the Door’s Corey Moosa executive produced Aardvark as did Robert Halmi Jr. and Jim Reeve.
Zachary Quinto & Neal Dodson Talk Forming Before the Door Pictures & ‘All is Lost’ | SSN Insider | November 20, 2013
Before The Door Pictures, the production company founded in 2008 by Corey Moosa, actor Zachary Quinto and Neal Dodson, has quietly risen to become a credible Hollywood player.
Its inaugural film, 2011’s Margin Call, written and directed by J.C. Chandor, received an Oscar nomination for best screenplay, and this year the company is headed towards more awards recognition with Chandor’s follow-up, All is Lost. Set entirely on water, the film stars Robert Redford in a virtually silent one-man show that’s already being earmarked for Best Actor recognition.
Quinto and Dodson, who have been friends since high school, spoke with SSN about the success of their company and their mutually beneficial relationship with Chandor.
SSN: When you first created the company, what was the initial purpose for doing it?
Quinto: The idea was generated on the heels of my first season on Heroes, when I realized as an actor I had a platform that I hadn’t before. Then Star Trek happened and I realized there was a window opening for me that wouldn’t stay open forever. I wanted to seize that opportunity.
SSN: Was there a grand plan when you first got together?
Quinto: We didn’t have any idea what we were doing. (laughs) We just knew that we’d been friends for a very long time and there was an implicit trust and an investment in each other’s well being and success. We felt that was a good engine for beginning a creative venture. Any time where there was a crossroads, it’s that connection that we leaned into. It’s served us to this point.
SSN: How hard was it to have others take you seriously when you first started taking meetings for projects?
Dodson: It was certainly hard at first. We had a handful of meetings where Zach and I would leave and go, ‘Well they didn’t really want to take that meeting.’ Now that we’ve established ourselves, we’re not having to make that argument anymore.
SSN: Your two most prominent projects have been with J.C. Chandor. What is that relationship like?
Quinto: The great thing about our relationship with J.C., from a creative standpoint, is that it’s a mutual experience. [With Margin Call] we brought him an opportunity that he wouldn’t have otherwise had, and the success of that film brought us opportunities that we might not have otherwise had.
Dodson: He’s a great template for the kind of people we’re looking to work with. As we meet other filmmakers, the qualities we love about J.C. are things we look for in others—no drama queen screamers, no angry sets—just people who are collaborative, who have a secure vision in what they’re trying to do, and like working together to achieve it.
SSN: After Chandor directed Margin Call, did you have faith he could do something that was virtually a silent film set on water?
Quinto: It was one step at a time for all of us. We went into Margin Call not knowing if J.C. could direct that movie or if we could pull it off from a production standpoint … As a result, we started to trust that the ground would reveal itself under our feet if we just stepped forward with curiosity, confidence, and as much integrity as we could all muster under the circumstances.
SSN: When he comes to you with All is Lost, which is a complete 180-degree turn from Margin Call, what do you say?
Dodson: All Is Lost was a big risk for all of us. To be candid, we didn’t know [if] J.C. could direct it, we didn’t know if the movie was going to be any good … The fences J.C. set around that project—no land, no dialogue, 77-year-old leading man, no other actors—were all risk factors for sure.
SSN: When were you sure that what you had with the film was something good?
Dodson: It wasn’t until we were sitting amongst 2,500 strangers at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie ended, people stood up, and clapped and didn’t stop clapping for somewhere between nine and 11 minutes, depending on who you believe in the stopwatch department. So it was that moment that we thought, ‘Oh maybe this worked.’
SSN: Neal, you were the day-to-day producer on that film along with Anna Gerb. How do you decide who takes the lead on a project between you, Zach, and Corey?
Dodson: The great thing about having partners is that it doesn’t mean all of us have to be there for every moment of every single project. While I was making All Is Lost, Zach was in the middle of shooting American Horror Story, and Corey took the lead on a horror movie we have coming out called The Banshee Chapter … We all sweat out everything from casting to contracts to financing.
SSN: Zach, you were both the day-to-day producer on Margin Call and an actor in the film. How come you have not appeared onscreen in any other Before The Door productions?
Quinto: I was in Margin Call to establish my association with the company … I haven’t been in any of the films that we made since because I’ve been pursuing other goals as an actor.
SSN: Does Before the Door have any specific aspirations as a company?
Dodson: So far, all our films have been fully independent, have all received releases, and we’ve given directors final cut. But in terms of where we’d like to go next, in addition to maintaining a sense of independence, we’d like to try our feet on a bigger studio project.
Quinto: It all comes down to material. All of us have similar enough sensibilities where we can recognize the projects that fit the parameters of what we want to accomplish creatively.