Just like the SXSW world premiere of The Lost City was a homecoming for Sandra Bullock, who lives here down in Austin, it marked a return for brothers Adam and Aaron Nee, who jump-started their filmmaking careers at the cinephile fest with the 2006 movie The Last Romantic.
That pic cost $18,000, and their latest SXSW was a fire-breathing Hollywood event movie which cost an estimated $74 million. If Saturday night’s premiere of The Lost City was a test screening, then expect this Paramount release to certainly secure box office treasures as the laughs and the applause throughout the movie didn’t cease.
While the guys dabbled in Hollywood for a while between acting and Comedy Central pilot-directing gigs, their careers were fast-tracked after pitching themselves for the Bumblebee directing job. Aaron Nee has a knack for VFX and they casted his daughter to star with the yellow Transformer in a short that wound up wowing other studio execs around town. While the Bumblebee directing job went to Travis Knight, the VFX reel brought the brothers the Power of Greyskull, specifically the helming gig for Mattel’s The Masters of the Universe movie that Sony decided to segue to Netflix.
Soon after they landed a meeting with Lost City star-producer Bullock and the pic’s producer Liza Chasin. They had a little time to prep, but as they expound here, they won them over, which proved to be muscle when they finally walked into Paramount to pitch the Indiana Jones-like comedy.
The Nees discuss their method of pitching, and tease some Masters of the Universe (they’re mum on whether She-Ra shows up) and more on today’s SXSW Crew Call:
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.