Building an empire in Hollywood is no easy thing but that’s precisely what Oren Koules did when he launched Twisted Pictures, the company that was behind the Saw franchise for more than 20 years. But that’s all changing as Koules and his business partner Mark Burg recently sold the rights to the Saw franchise to Blumhouse, arguably the biggest name in modern horror. So, where do Koules and Twisted Pictures go from here? Into something totally new, which begins with the release of Trust.
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In theaters now, Trust is the first major release from Koulest Productions, a partnership between former pro hockey player turned producer Miles Koules and his father, Oren Koules. The film has the backing of Paramount through its genre label Republic Pictures and it’s also got a big star in Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) leading the way, not just as a star but as a producer as well.
Directed by Carlson Young, the film centers on a Hollywood starlet (Turner) who retreats to a remote cabin after a scandal only to find out that she’s not alone. Betrayed by the man she trusted most, she winds up trapped in a brutal game of survival.
So, can Oren Koules and Miles Koules turn Koulest into a new genre destination? Can this become a father/son horror empire? Admittedly, their ambitions are far more reasonable right now but this movie is just the beginning. I had the good fortune of speaking with them on behalf of Trust’s theatrical release. We discussed everything from how pro hockey translates to producing movies , what went down with the Saw rights and much more.
This is a bit of a father/son production. Not that that's super uncommon in Hollywood, but what was that like for you guys going through this together and having that familial relationship, but then also having to have a business relationship?
Miles Koules: For me it's interesting because I'm doing something completely new, but also being guided by someone who's been doing it for 30 years. So there's some push and pull there for us, but every time that we ever had to, we always resolved anything. For me it was just the best experience ever. I get to have the opportunity to make a film, and it's something that I read and have a ton of passion for. Then I have the guidance of not only Oren, but also Dan Hefner and Katura Kestin, who he's been producing the Saw movies with for how long, 15 years?
So I guess if I could fit in any way, I felt extremely lucky to be able to do something new but have such a great group of people around me, especially my father.
Oren, was there one specific piece of advice you had for Miles going through this?
Oren Koules: There's a million of those on a daily basis, but I'll tell you an interesting one in it he did. So I brought him down. We were doing Saw X down in Mexico City, and so he said, “Why don't you shadow me for three or four days while we're down there?” And I said, “But do me a favor. I'm going to walk by and say, ‘This person does this, this person does this, always do this, always do that. Just little tricks here and there.'” And I said, “Do me a favor, don't say, ‘I know.'” I said, “Just say, okay.”
So I walk through it and do it, and it was very easy because to keep it as this dumbest thing in the world, I'm sure he just said, “Okay.” But it's just like a trick. I always like to go into hair and makeup because believe me, all the gossip, everything that happens comes through their hair and makeup stage. So you want to know who's happy, who's unhappy, who's doing what, how's everybody? Good? Everybody in great spirits. Just pop in, grab a coffee, say hi to everybody. It's just things I've learned along the way that I wanted to pass on to him.
We're here to talk about Trust. I'm a big theatrical experience guy. I prefer pretty much any movie to be given its day in theaters. That's what you guys are doing with this. I don't think you guys are probably expecting this to be a number one hit or anything, but if you would be willing to sort of walk me through what, from a business side, makes it worth putting a movie like this in theaters rather than just putting it on VOD?
Oren Koules: First of all, Sophie Turner is an absolute star and just the attention for her doing a press day, it's non-stop. It's good to have a little bit of a beacon to start with. It's a great story. I haven't seen it. I usually don't see movies I make in the theater at the end because I've sat in 8,000 meetings, 8,000 cuts, things sent to me. I'm looking at it basically almost on a phone sometimes.
But a couple of weeks ago, we had a screening at the big Paramount Theater and watched it in a theater. I, like you, am a big theater person. But it played so well and the big Paramount Theater is 400, 500, I don't know, whatever it seats. We had probably 250, maybe 300 in there. It was such a great experience to hear people laugh where they wanted to, scream and be scared when we wanted them to. I think the movie deserved it. Paramount, by the way, wasn't a lot of push. They really liked the movie. They liked the cast. They felt it was seven deep, but people they knew, they thought it was great performances. People like Katey Sagal who plays a small role and she's tremendous in it, and they thought it was worth giving it a shot.
You mentioned Sophie who not only stars in this, but produces as well, one of her first.
Miles Koules: A hundred percent.
What was it like working with her? It's not just as an actor, she's a big part of this. What was it like collaborating with her along the way?
Miles Koules: You know what's funny is, speaking of my dad, he's like, “Don't let this experience ruin the rest of the movies you make for you,” because it was so smooth. She was such an amazing person before even an actor and a producer. It was like sometimes you forget that you're working with this megastar tremendous actor who's been in the spotlight since she was 12 years old, and you just thought it was one of your buddies that you're hanging out having a beer with. She was just the coolest person ever and I can't even explain enough about how dealing with her on an everyday basis was just such a tremendous experience to be around.
Starting with Sophie, but down the line, it's a female-led film with a women-led team behind the scenes as well. Nicole Kidman has worked with a ton of women filmmakers in recent years, and she's like, “It's just about putting your money where your mouth is.” Was it very much intentional to make sure that you got a lot of women working on this film, or did it just fall into place that way?
Oren Koules: Carlson came along. She was tremendous. She did a romantic comedy before that called Upgraded. I think romantic comedy is the hardest thing to make, and killed it. The reason I think is because if you do an action movie and the story sucks, you have great action, you can still kind of sneak through, where romantic comedy, you have no place to hide if you screw up. She did a tremendous job on that. Couture has been with us since 2009. The first assistant director [Barbara Jane Cole] we used in Saw X, and she was tremendous. It was conscious because it started feeling like that, but it was always the best person available.
Miles Koules: I guess the best person available is the right way to put it. But if you go a little bit deeper into it, I think the similarities between Carlson and obviously Sophie, both being child actresses, both kind of understanding what that's like, being able to talk to each other about those experiences. Having Carlson see it through that lens, I think just enhanced the movie so much more that that's kind of why we went that direction as well. Also, if we had Carlson lined up with five other guys and it didn't even have to do with a child actress, I think she's still a better director than the rest of everyone we looked at, and that was the point.
Oren Koules: Also, Gigi Levangie, who wrote it, was married to Brian Grazer for a very long time. I don't know how long, but I mean 20 years or something. So she understood the business very well, obviously as a writer. To have kind of the milieu of a television show and a celebrity and what's going on, she probably had a better bird's eye view than all of us put together of what that life is like. Gigi wrote a great script. Carlson's movie floored us all, and we just kept going.
Miles Koules: It is weird because we didn't intend on doing that, but because we did, it made the movie a lot better.
Koulest Productions is just launching and horror out the gate, which makes sense. But what's your vision for it on a larger timeline? Are you trying to be the next Blumhouse? Do you have something else in mind? What is your vision for the company?
Miles Koules: I think my vision, I'm not really a five, ten year plan kind of guy. I'm just day-by-day, project-by-project. I think we're going to explore the genre realm. I think we might go a little scarier on the next one we do, go more traditional horror. But for me, Koulest will be something that I'll be doing for a really long time. I think while working with my dad, I just want to make these great movies for Republic [Pictures] and Paramount in the genre space, and always have a good message behind it. Always have some films with some smart layers to it and not just your stereotypical slasher. From there, I don't know, maybe explore some other genres and different things that I have a passion for as well. But for the time being, I think just make some great scary movies.
I see the jersey behind you. Did your hockey career at all help you with your Hollywood career up to this point? Were there any translatable skills there?
Miles Koules: I think there's two major translatable skills, and they're so cliche, it pains me to say them, but I can't avoid it. I think to be someone that plays any sport professionally, you have to have a lot of hard work in your everyday life. I think I tried to make a conscious effort of, while I'm no longer being an athlete, still keeping myself very regimented and putting the work first rather than being lazy and not.
Then the second part of it is being on set and actually being a part of a movie making process. I've really learned my whole life, what it takes to be a member of a team and be a good teammate. I think that translated really well to being on set and being someone that I'm a producer sitting on set, but I'm no better than anyone else. Kind of knowing that from being a little kid all the way through the ranks of being a pro athlete.
Miles, do you have any aspirations of directing or anything? Or do you just want to be a producer?
Miles Koules: Someone asked me this the other day. I for now would love to just be a producer, but this is a very unique experience. We got Carlson on board and then the strike happened, so we couldn't do anything to advance the project. But me and Carlson remained close, and we go grab a drink once a week and talk about the movie and just become friends also because you're just bored, and you don't want to do nothing.
When the strike ended, we ended up casting the movie and moved down to Mexico City and did our prep down there, I was really close to Carlson. She became one of my best friends through this process. I'm learning on set as I go, but I'm also hanging with her and watching her direct, and it kind of inspired me to maybe take a stab at it one day. But I'd say that's far down the line, right now I'm really happy to be working with my dad and trying to make great films.
You guys have this deal inked with Republic Pictures, as I understand it. I don't know how far that deal extends or whatever, but do you guys have anything else in the hopper, anything else planned, anything else you can talk about?
Oren Koules: It's a little bit my fault. We have probably five things that we have in different stages of development. I was in the process the last six months of selling Saw, which took a lot of my time. It was very complicated. There's three different buyers. It's just a complicated deal. I wanted to get this one to get the love it needed.
So for us, it's probably after Labor Day, we'll pick one, and my goal is to make one in the fall and one in the spring. I would love for he and I, for the next years, to make three every two years, one and a half a year.
That's a good clip.
Oren Koules: Not too much. I did seven in seven with Saw. We actually did Catacombs in between, and we were doing Two and a Half Men at the same time. So it was a crazy schedule. But doing three every two years, I think Miles and I can handle that in different stages. We'll stay in the milieu, but like Miles said, we're not having a girl in the shower, a knife comes and cuts the shower curtain. We'd much rather be more thinking and just more script-based, really cool ideas for a movie and a really cool execution of an idea.
You did just sell the Saw rights recently. That was a really big deal. What was it like to sort of see your baby go to another home? Was that difficult for you? How did you arrive at letting it go to Blumhouse and Atomic Monster?
Oren Koules: It wasn't letting anyone go to anyone. It was just us. It was the right place, James and Leigh [Whannell]. James has a formal agreement with Blumhouse, his Atomic Monster. One, and I mean Whannell is very close. We all talk. It was the logical place. My partner and I couldn't see eye-to-eye on Saw 11, and it was the right time.
Then we also sold the ten previous movies, the library of those movies and all the ancillaries, the roller coaster, the escape rooms. We sold the whole kitten and caboodle. So it was a very complicated deal that got done. And yes, it's hard. Some ways I'm bummed, but some ways I'm kind of free of it also. For 21 years, that's what I've been doing. I want to tell other stories.
Would you like to talk at all about what those plans for Saw 11 were or why it became an issue?
Oren Koules: I mean it's not a big secret. I mean, so Kevin Greutert was directing. Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton wrote. It's a great script. It took place about 30 seconds after Saw X. Everybody was in. Everybody was in and Mark [Burg] and I couldn't agree on the execution. I purposely have never asked Jason [Blum] what his idea is. In the sale they got the Saw 11 script. So I don't want to give away too much in case he goes to make it. I don't want to give any idea away, but I've never talked to Jason about what his plans are for the franchise.
I know Jason, really, he loves video games. A lot of the things he had were with Paranormal [Activity], all these different franchises. He didn't own those rights to go make video games. I know that he really wanted to start owning IP so he could take advantage of all the different things. So he looked at us. We have the largest roller coaster in the UK at Thorpe Park. We have two escape rooms. Things like that he loved. He wanted to be part of the ownership of branching out like that with a franchise.
To bring it all back to Trust, the box office is in a somewhat perilous place. It's hard to know what will and will not succeed. Can you guys each make your pitch to a prospective moviegoer? Why go see Trust?
Miles Koules: I think if you have an hour and a half, it's a great journey to go on. You're on the roller coaster of emotions, and you'll walk out of there not only feeling every type of emotion possible in an hour and a half thriller, but also you'll see a deep message in there that's really powerful and impactful in today's day and age.
Oren Koules: Our quality, I mean our DP [Alejandro Martínez], should never have been done our movie. He's 10,000 times better DP, but he was available around friends of friends and he did it. But I mean, he's a $15,000 a week DP that did a $5 million movie. We got very fortunate.
Trust is in theaters now. For more, check out the subscriber cover for FANGORIA #29.
