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If you've been paying attention to Hollywood over the past ten years, you would know this: Ryan Coogler doesn't miss. The 38 year-old writer-director has built up a stellar résumé beginning with Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and now his first original film, Sinners. With such a critically-acclaimed filmography, and a brilliant screenplay with Sinners, Coogler was in a unique position to negotiate a deal with Warner Bros. where the rights to his vampire film will revert back to him in 25 years. 

This is a deal that has Hollywood, reportedly, up in arms, as Vulture reports. Still, Coogler is hardly the first major director in Hollywood to cut a deal where he'll retain the copyright to a film of his: Quentin Tarantino will gain the rights to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood from Sony after 30 years, while Mel Gibson, Richard Linklater, and Peter Jackson have all struck similar deals. But as Vulture points out, part of what defines the staying power of studios like Warner Bros. in Hollywood is the robustness of their library of films, which they can choose to distribute however they see fit ad infinitem. Coogler's deal for Sinners, some execs feel, undermines the remaining power that studios have with the auteurs they work with. 

The operative word is "power," here. To avoid getting bogged down in the details of how unnamed studio executives feel about Sinners' rights deal, I personally could care less, there's a glaring dimension to the film at hand that makes Hollywood's reaction to Coogler's eventual ownership of it, well, embarrassing. I've seen the film, and it's a powerful, heartpounding exploration of what it means for Black people in America to participate in the great American, capitalist tradition of owning things. Whether it's their own business, careers, or life trajectories, Sinners highlights the specific set of forces working to stifle Black autonomy in the early 1930s Deep South. For some characters in the film, making money is the ultimate way to attain "power" within systemic oppression, while others remain wary of capitalism's evils. A story like this demands to be in the hands of its creator.  

This is why it's absolutely necessary for Ryan Coogler, a Black filmmaker, to ultimately gain the copyright to his original film. The thought of Sinners becoming another source of IP for a Hollywood studio, frankly, depresses me because of how soulless the studio system can be. I've worked in creative development at a studio, I've danced that cursed little jig between commerce and creativity. I get that it's all just "business." But to see a powerhouse talent like Ryan Coogler win big on a deal that honors the themes of his work, it certainly puts a smile on my face. 

Sinners is now showing in theaters, and it's already a box office hit. 

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