Oscar nominations: ‘Social Network’ producers will celebrate at Sundance
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Kevin Spacey is in Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival, where his new film ‘Margin Call’ is set to premiere Tuesday night, but he and fellow ‘The Social Network’ producer Dana Brunetti will be spending at least part of the evening celebrating the best picture Oscar nomination the Facebook film received Tuesday morning.
‘I’m enormously pleased and I’m incredibly proud of my producing partner Dana Brunetti, who’s been running my company since I left eight years ago to start a theater company in London,’ said Spacey, who has an executive producer credit on the film. ‘If it weren’t for the remarkable work he’s done, I couldn’t be doing the work I’m doing.’
Spacey continued to sing Brunetti’s praises: ‘To me the greatest part of the story is 13 years ago he started as my assistant and then I assigned him to create what became Triggerstreet.com. I saw enormous potential in what he could do as a producer and I asked him to come on and run the company. He’s done such an extraordinary job. To me, it’s a wonderful thing. We made a movie about two guys who made the most extraordinary social-networking site in the world, and it pulled them apart and they don’t speak, so this is as much about our friendship between Dana and me. He came to the Academy Awards 10 years ago as my assistant, and now he’s going as an Oscar-nominated producer; that’s a great story.’
Saying that the film was really all about collaboration, Spacey praised the writing-directing team of Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher -- a filmmaker whose relationship with the actor dates back to 1995’s dark serial killer story ‘Se7en’ -- and the other members of the producing team, Mike De Luca, Scott Rudin and Cean Chaffin. He also singled out Sony for releasing the film and said that he hopes more of the major Hollywood studios will begin to make similar kinds of projects.
‘The fact that Sony was able to step up and make a movie about relationships, that didn’t have a car crash or a gun fight, any real sex, no explosions, for us it’s incredibly encouraging,’ Spacey said. ‘I hope because the movie has done so well it will encourage other studios to step up and make these films because they are really valuable and important.’
The actor said his experience on this film recalls another great Oscar moment from his past.
‘The funny thing about movies, I’ve been through this kind of embrace when ‘American Beauty’ came out, the incredible confluence of events when something does well across the board,’ Spacey said. ‘Today is just a great embrace for the film and the filmmakers and the kind of movie it is. I think it’s a timeless story that somehow manages to capture its time, seeing the way in which we as a society treat each other, the important values the film puts out there. All the hallmarks of great drama.’
-- Nicole Sperling