Where Have All the Action Heroes Gone? With 'John Wick' Producer Basil Iwanyk

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1:31Matt Belloni:It's Thursday, August 13th. We're heading into mid-August, one of the only times of the year when action movies premiere in theaters. Lo and behold, there's a new movie with Jason Statham called Mutiny coming out next Friday from Lionsgate. But this summer, that was pretty much it. I'm not talking superhero spectacles or sci-fi or pre-branded IP plays. I'm talking regular old action movies, It's guy or girl kicking butt and dodging bullets for 100 minutes or so. The kind of movies that were basically the main revenue source for the film industry throughout the 80s and 90s. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, stars like Seagal, Schwarzenegger, Keanu, Liam Neeson, Mila Jovovich.

2:09Matt Belloni:These movies and movie stars haven't gone away. I mentioned Statham, and there's Jerry Butler, Fast and Furious, John Wick franchise. I'm sure fans can throw a bunch of others at me. But these franchises are old for the most part, and the stars are mostly old. And as a business, the action movie market is very different than it once was. Overseas, they still have a big audience, mostly on streaming, but domestically, not so much. And the major studios are mostly out of the pure action movie business. Doug Kruitz, the analyst, he recently noted that the action-adventure movies accounted for 35 % of ticket sales from the top 100 films in 2025.

2:46Matt Belloni:That tied for the lowest share since 2010 and marked the third year in a row in the mid-30 % range. So why is that? Do audiences just not consider action movies theatrical? No young stars? Are they just not cool? That's today's episode. And to discuss, I've got Basil Iwanek. He's a veteran producer of many movies. He did Sicario and the Town, but he's especially good at producing action movies. He's done the John Wicks, Greenland with Jerry Butler, the Expendables franchise. We're going to get into the market for action movies, why the studios aren't interested in them anymore, where they are working, and how to get more of them made.

3:21Matt Belloni:From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Pelony, and this is The Town.

3:28Matt Belloni:All right, we are here with Basil Iwanek, who is CEO and partner in Thunder Road and a veteran producer. Welcome, Basil. Thanks, Matt. Thanks for having me. All right. I wanted to have you on the show because I am concerned about the action genre. If you look at the calendar, they just don't make them like they used to. I hate to be that guy, but they don't. We've got a Jason Statham movie coming out next weekend from Lionsgate. But again, it's sort of in that mid to late August. I don't want to say dumping ground, but like where the expectations are not very high. It's Lionsgate. It's not a major studio.

4:08Matt Belloni:So I want to get into this with you because you have produced a lot of action movies, including some of the most successful action franchises of the past 20-25 years. And the business of action movies is interesting. So first of all, am I right? Is the market for action movies more challenged, much more challenged than it used to be? I think the market for domestic distribution for action movies has been more challenging. But I think the market internationally and for streamers arguably is the most it's the best it's the gold rush for the action movies oh you think so okay so let's get into that because I would have thought that the old days of you know putting a famous action figure on the DVD and selling it at AFM selling off territories and then getting the domestic release like that's how those movies got put together and then there was the studio version which was obviously a much higher budget usually, and they would come in up front.

5:12Matt Belloni:But why is that the case right now? Why are the studios, have they just absorbed the DVD market, the streamers? I do know, again, internationally, action movies are selling as well as they ever have. You know, when you read the analysis of what works on Netflix, it goes action, action, action. You know, Amazon is their go-to, at least for Prime, right? Or action movies, like dad movies. and so I for me when I look at I think the biggest issue are there are the major studios don't release mid-budget action movies anymore Lionsgate used to do it all the time Jason Constantine may he rest in peace one of the great all-time acquisition executives would have by two or three a year for Lionsgate you know Fox had action movies even Warner Brothers where I started had a Steven Seagal movie every year and they had the Joel Silver movies and so when you look around you know and disney obviously is not going to release these um universal has their eye on a different prize warner's doesn't do it anymore paramount my sense is they're starting to do it um new line by the way used to also release it and so there aren't a lot of distributors that are embracing this this world i mean there really isn't i mean we were able to get monkey man done at universal um you know but those are movies are not homegrown those are acquisitions so So I think it's the, we don't have, like STX came and went, unfortunately.

6:38We don't have those distributors that embrace that budget level and that straight action genre domestically. Again, in terms of streamers and foreign, it's a gold rush. It really is. I mean, and it's exciting. But yeah, definitely domestically, we're getting, you know, that genre is getting crushed.

6:58Matt Belloni:Why do you think the studios don't find these projects viable? Is it just another example of, you know, comedies have migrated to streaming and dramas? Is it just another example of a genre that is not considered theatrical? Because buff dudes kicking ass seems pretty theatrical on its face. Well, let me just back up a bit for, you know, I grew up in the 80s. I mean, it's crazy to think between Arnold and Sly and Bruce and Van Damme and Seagal. Yes, they kind of drifted to other genres over the course of time. But all those delivered one big action movie a year. The bench was so deep. There was a great deep bench from Asia.

7:41You know, we'd have Jackie Chan movies and Jet Li movies. You know, I don't think those names have been replaced.

7:47Matt Belloni:And why is that? Or have they just migrated to television? Alan Richardson, perfect example. That guy's an action star, but he's doing an Amazon Prime TV show, Reacher. But listen, I did a bunch of sword and sandal movies. You watch Game of Thrones, you're like, no one's going to do this better. That genre was like destroyed. Although one's in theaters right now that just did a billion dollars, but it's a little different. That's his own, I mean, Chris is his own subject. Chris Nolan, I mean, if the movie was out of focus, it would have made a billion dollars. I mean, he's incredible. Yeah. And so I can't tell why there aren't the straight, action guys anymore and i cannot also tell you how many times i have studios and financiers call me and say how do we break the next one like they need these people yeah and you know but but if you look at the modern action hero now we'll talk about statham and jerry bowler because their own kind of ecosystem in a second oftentimes it would it was actors that were not known for their action chops right and keanu reeves doing speed up to that point keanu reeves was like a slacker stoner exactly you know matt damon playing born matt damon was cute right um yeah liam neeson the obvious one right i mean liam neeson the guy was like you know bbc i mean he was liam neeson right and the fact he was an action star so and you see people you know toe dip right but as bob odenkirk an action star is that patel an action star like we just made a movie for with walton Goggins is an action movie you know we we think Walton Goggins but it's it's the market he's 60 years old though that's well yeah that is a little bit of the issue is the age sure who's 30 and doing this I know well we're trying trust me and you know why isn't Jacob Elordi doing it why aren't these people that I don't know I don't know if there's a snobbishness to it I don't know if well no path that's the thing is they need one of these guys to do it you think maybe Keanu with John Wick would have caused a rush of this and we have seen other people but also Keanu's in his late 50s so like there needs to be someone to break out as a 20 something early 30s action star you know Gosling tried it with the fall guy and didn't really work and that was sort of quasi branded but I don't know, ma 'am.

10:13Matt Belloni:It just seems like there's a hole there. But what you're saying is that internationally on the streamers, these movies are still popular. So why doesn't the model work? If the audience is still there internationally, why aren't the foreign pre-sales and all of the usual things that go into the action genre working to lead to a pipeline of domestic releases? I've been asking that question for a long time. Someone needs to point where the failures are. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just that because the streamers are lopping up global rights, the economics aren't there. You can't sell territory by territory and make back a$20,$30 million budget.

10:55Matt Belloni:If they're buying up these movies for half the price, then the budget isn't there to make the movie good enough for domestic release. That's true. Maybe that's it. A big issue is the price point. You kind of mentioned it before. um you know like taken was you know 20 million dollars um the original taken like what's that price point of what's the gateway drug price point right that goes okay it's proof of concept is this person an action star you know for like matt damon obviously he was it was it was a love them book and stuff and i just think at that number big studios it doesn't it's not on their radar it doesn't impact them like it doesn't i think they'd rather have liam neeson after you You know, we put Liam Neeson and Clash of the Titans after Take It.

11:37Like, they're not looking to break people. That's just my, at least the studio is now in 2026. And to be honest with you, I don't even think the streamers are looking to break people. Streamers are, you know, they like people who are brands. They want the tile.

11:54Matt Belloni:They want a tile you'll click on. Exactly right. It's the same as the DVD market. If you could put a shirtless Van Damme on a DVD cover, you knew that you would at least sell a few thousands of these at Costco or the European equivalents. Yeah. For instance, I was talking to A24 and A24 is like, how do we find someone young, someone maybe international? How do we start using the A24 brand of how edgy and different and left of center they are? and how do we put that brand and start an action franchise and it always comes down to the same thing who and and trust me i'm we make a ton of action movies like we just made this spinoff of john we called kane that donnie n directed and and started and donnie is a legend and i i gotta go donnie who's the next donnie n who's the next gently who's the next jackie chan he goes i don't know he's like there isn't another general like we're we're trying we're looking for them to try and make that movie for 13 14 million dollars you know do upside see if it works it just i don't it's a strange the pipeline is as has dried up internationally and domestically for whatever reason younger actors don't seem to get that excited about being in action movies and you're right the wick movies you know most of the wick movies were you know above 90 rotten tomatoes people love the movies i mean i can't tell you every young actor we met they're obsessed with the movies but they don't want to be in them you know they at least in my experience they're not rushing to be in them yeah i was trying to think of the younger guys that you know this noah centineo is doing the the rambo reboot um he seems okay which is supposed to be great it's supposed to be good yes and there's a couple i i think also you know audiences now are so used to seeing these amped up cgi yeah a lot of superheroes a lot of added elements that make those films feel bigger and dudes fighting with cool choreography just may not be as appealing as it used to be when you can see literally anything on screen you know i respectfully disagree i i listen i don't know if i believe that i'm just saying that's a theory no i get that and we're like to get into the weeds like it's very hard to do a great car chase very hard you as in fioris has you know a gazillion dollars and you know they have car chases in the middle of rome like you can't top what's been done on you know in car chases and what's been done today you just can't i mean i know i was watching the italian job remake because they did on the rewatchables and there's some great stuff in that movie too yeah there is and so you can't go bigger in car chases so what you do is how do you make it interesting where do you put the camera you know we just is the camera inside the car the whole time what who's driving what's happening what's other so you have to be clever about you can't help big car chases so there's no question that the size and scope of films and the visual effects it it forces you to be different and i I actually think one of the reasons why the action genre is in transition is, I also think kind of stylistically it's in transition.

15:13And here's what I'm saying. Like, when Matrix came out, there were so many action films that were kind of hatched from the Matrix egg, that kind of looked like Matrix and all that stuff.

15:21Matt Belloni:And then... I mean, fancy camera tricks and quasi kind of Asian style, surrealistic action. Long robes, like, you know, long jackets, sunglasses, very austere. Um, then we had born and shaky camera, like handheld, um, in your face and that changed everything. And how many, how many action movies did we see that kind of a rip off a lot? A lot. Okay. And then John Wick, when we were our original conversation with John Wick, it was, we want to do the antidote to born. We wanted locked off camera, everything in frame, you know, that required someone like piano who would train and rehearse for, you know, months and months at a time, no cutaways.

16:08And I think people were thought that was really cool. Now, you know, admittedly, it's now kind of played out, you know, like the, the John Wick kind of the gun fu and all that stuff, that stuff is, you know, a lot of people have used it, including us. And so when I say that there's a stylistic transition for me, talking to filmmakers, how do you do action now? This feels different, right? It's not, you're not going to go bigger. Like, how does it feel more visceral? How does it feel more like visually, like where you want to see it on a big screen? Of course, you got to love the character and there's movie stars and all, of course.

16:44I'm talking about just how action is shot. I think we're in a bit of a transition and I think we're trying to figure out as an audience, what's the next thing? You know, we have like, we had John Wick, we had the boring, shaky stuff. How do you shoot and design action in a way that we haven't seen before. I don't think we have any answer to that yet. We're trying.

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18:18Matt Belloni:So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the town. That's linkedin.com slash the town. Terms and conditions apply on Disney plus. So obviously Jason Statham, Jerry Butler, two guys that can still get these movies made. You know, they're in the what? 20 million range. Typically 2030. You mean the budget? Yeah. Oh, God, no. Way higher. Oh, way higher? Oh, yeah. So, like, what did Greenland cost? 50. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's surprising to me. So take us through how that film gets financed.

19:05The majority of those movies are somewhere between 50 and 65 million dollars.

19:11Matt Belloni:Okay, well, that's the answer right there, is that in that range, the studios often think that's no man's land. too expensive to generate a quick return you got to have a hit and not blockbuster level they all make money i mean and not to get into into okay but let's but let's first of all let's talk about the front end take us through the budget on a movie like greenland like why does it cost 50 and how do you put the financing together i mean there's a lot of visual effects on Greenland. And those guys, Jerry and Jason, they get paid. On Greenland, we went through a company called Anton. Ironically, it was...

19:56Originally, the movie was going to be Chris Evans and Neil Blomkamp. And then on the side, it got reconstituted with Jerry and Rick Waugh. We set up this company called Anton, a financier. And ultimately, we gave it to

20:11Matt Belloni:stx they're a former distributor that is no longer active correct we were going to supposed to come out in late june of 2020 um obviously covet happened it did get released domestic uh foreign on a bunch of um a bunch of territories and it became just a huge video i mean a huge home video a huge ancillary hit and what i've learned from the economics of jerry and stathan movies is you truly should ignore the domestic box office you know i'm not a math genius and there are many times where i'm like oh my god we're gonna lose money on this movie but then you realize no actually it's so profitable in the afterlife that even if a movie makes you know 14 million dollars and the movie costs you know 55 none of that makes sense right you kind of go That's going to be a pooch.

21:05Matt Belloni:It makes them money. In PVOD and through these ancillary deals in different territories. So you had a single financier for that$50 million budget, or did you sell off multiple territories to raise the rest? Yeah, we sold off all the territories. And then you had SDX as the domestic distributor. Correct. And what percentage of the budget do they put up? They probably put up, I would say, 20 % of the budget. okay and then they ended up having to flip it to streaming during covet correct but it was successful enough to do a sequel and then lionsgate took that over correct the first john wick it made like 46 million dollars like everyone thinks that that was a runaway hit in almost any other normal world 15, 16 years ago, you don't make a movie that grosses$46 million that cost 28, right?

22:04It doesn't make sense. And it made more money domestically than four. So it wasn't like it made 46 here and like 200 there. But the numbers, you know, in the afterlife were so robust that Lionsgate, and I have to give him credit, were like, there is an audience here. If we make John Wick 2 at a proper number, there's an audience here. And so that was the first time I realized for these action movies that it's not about the domestic, you know, and that there is, there is such a vibrant life for it afterwards. Now, the movies, thankfully, like, you know, John Wick 2, you know, the proof of concept was, okay, people want to see it.

22:45It's not a, you know, it's a movie that people want to see in the theater. But these movies, these Jerry movies and these um safety movies the model that they have um are profitable on every single one of them i'm not kidding you every single one of them that's why they get paid that's why they get

23:01Matt Belloni:paid that's why they get paid does jerry butler still have that manager alan yes oh my god that guy is a character i love him we're about to make another movie with jerry we've made there'll be our fifth movie with jerry i love i love jerry okay so he knows the drill he gets paid he knows his audience. He churns them out. I want to know if you think streaming has been good or bad for the action movie genre. You want to hear some interesting? Jason and Jerry have not done a streamer movie. Interesting. They've not done a direct to streaming movie. Correct. I'm sure Netflix has backed up the Brinks truck too.

23:38Matt Belloni:Correct. I'm both. It's so funny you say that because I would have put Mark Wahlberg in that category of like, you know, good actors who pivoted and started doing action. But Mark Wahlberg will take a check from any streamer. And I think it's really hurt him at the box office. He is now a streaming guy. They're very, very, very smart. And they're actually a lot more clever and astute about who their audience is and the world they occupy. they are you know jason doesn't have an agent or a manager he's in complete control of his career you go to jason for everything large and small wow jerry comes on as a producer isn't that just because he's british and cheap that's why the brits don't have lawyers usually they're just cheap and jerry is you know he's a producer on all his movies for the most part and he is he wants to know everything.

24:34He's not just a guy who's like, when do we show up? What are the lines? He doesn't fill it in at all. It's not the Johnny Depp treatment. I just made a movie with Johnny Depp. Oh, sorry.

24:45Matt Belloni:Day Drinker coming out next year. Awesome. And Johnny was awesome. But yes, maybe back in a day, there could have been something. But, you know, and so it's a conscious decision from them not to make a stream movie. You're right. Netflix, I mean, those titles on Netflix are insane. I know it because we have a lot of them, a lot of the Jerry movies. And you think it's because they get the theatrical release first? I don't know if that's what it is or the average person who likes to watch action movies on a streamer love Jerry and Jason movies. And they're separate audiences, meaning there's a weekend in the theater audience and then there's the streaming audience.

25:26Matt Belloni:They know that they need to capitalize on both. But it's interesting to me that the two most consistently successful action, you know, mini genres, Jerry and Jason are theatrical guys. And they're firmly theatrical guys. I think that, I don't know, I'm not smart enough to figure out why that's the case. But it's an interesting observation. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the evolution of the business, and if you think that streaming basically ate the home video market, and a lot of these AFM style, the geezer teasers, whatever you want to call them, the movies that were sold off of the picture on the DVD, that's on streaming now.

26:13Matt Belloni:But those movies, for the most part, got theatrical releases, especially internationally. So if you're going to replicate that market for streaming, it makes sense to keep that international, especially theatrical window as well. 100%. It's just the domestic that is still the problem. Yeah, I just wonder if we're in this transition period where we don't have enough exciting, interesting, younger action stars, as you pointed out. You know, it's funny. You guys tried with Ana de Armas, Craig's favorite, on Ballerina. Didn't work. What is the appetite market after that experience for female action stars?

27:00Matt Belloni:It's been a long time since Lucy. It's been a long time since Lucy. it's been a long time since Mila Jovovich did one every year that works Scarlett Johansson is an incredible actress but she's also a great action star I mean you talk about Lucy, you talk about Black Widow I think it's a lazy thinking to think oh, Ananda Aris didn't work in I'm not saying you're lazy thinking No, but I am saying the studios are lazy and maybe they are less likely to do one seeing what happened with Ballerina Correct, and I think that's lazy thinking Listen, there's rumors that Zendaya is going to do Bourne. So maybe we'll see that.

27:38If Zendaya does Bourne, that's like game over. See, that's what I'm talking about. That's something that is... You mean game over in a good way? That could break through.

27:47Matt Belloni:Yeah, in a good way. But that's IP. Yeah. That gets a June or July release if she does that. Yeah, it does. You know, I just wonder if Zendaya did the equivalent of a John Wick. That's what we're talking about. Or if Chalamet did the equivalent of a John Wick. Yeah. And what you're saying is, for whatever reason, they're not interested in doing that. Correct. But also, the definition of what an action movie is also kind of fuzzy to me. I remember when we previewed Sicario for the first time. You know, you asked in the preview audience, like, how would you describe the movie? Like, what's the genre?