When the fuel-injected new drama “The Bikeriders,” from acclaimed director Jeff Nichols, rolled into local theaters last weekend, it roared in on a wave of mostly positive reviews. Critics are praising the cinematic voltage of stars Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Tom Hardy (“The Revenant,” “Dark Knight Rises”) and Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve,” “The Last Duel”), giving high-marks to the film’s creative team, specifically Nichols, cinematographer Adam Stone and score composer David Wingo.
Not mentioned as often is another name, a longtime collaborator of Nichols and one of the producers of “The Bikeriders,” Brian Kavanaugh-Jones.
To folks from Petaluma, that name might be familiar.
A former student at Cherry Valley School, McNear Elementary and Petaluma Junior High, Kavanaugh Jones is the son of Babs Kavanaugh, currently a board member of Friends of the Petaluma River, and a longtime community mover and shaker. Though Kavanaugh-Jones’ three younger sisters all attended Petaluma High School, he attended Marin Academy in San Rafael.
“As a teenager, I was searching for a community of like-minded, art-focused folks, and found it at Marin Academy, and was lucky enough to have the support of my parents to do it,” Kavanaugh-Jones recalled, speaking on the phone from his home in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife and children. “But I love Petaluma, and I still visit my parents there as often as I can.”
After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in fine arts, Kavanaugh-Jones spent the next several years as a Hollywood agent, working for Creative Artist’s Agency. At CAA, he formed a professional relationship with Jason Blum, who would eventually form Blumhouse Pictures, the innovative studio behind such films as “Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious,” “Get Out,” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”
“As an agent I helped to sell ‘Paranormal Activity,’ and set up some other movies for Jason, and when I left the agency to become a producer we set up a five-picture slate with Alliance, and ‘Insidious’ was the first movie of those five,” said Kavanaugh-Jones. “’Sinister’ was also in that slate, so we got to work in the genre space really closely.”
Kavanaugh-Jones estimates he’s made around 15 movies with Jason Blum.
“He’s been a great mentor,” he said.
Of his decision to move into producing, Kavanaugh-Jones says the job was a natural fit.
“In college, I found was that I was happiest when I was working with other artists in a collaborative environment,” he said. “I also found that I was better at the organizational and strategic tasks than I was at the moment-to-moment of actually doing the art. It’s so fun to build a community of people who all come together and get to make magic in these really quick, passionate, intense environments. It’s a pretty great job. I love it.”
It’s a job he says he wants to keep, as he is not interested in writing or directing movies.
“That’s a really different skill set,” he allowed. “I love working with brilliant directors. It’s my favorite part of the job.”
To date, Kavanaugh-Jones has produced close to 100 films, and has more than a dozen projects in the works right now. Next month, another highly anticipated film will be released. Titled “Longlegs,” it’s a mystery-horror film featuring Nicolas Cage, directed by Oz Perkins (“Gretel and Hansel”).
His chosen projects have demonstrated an interest in a wide array of styles, from the biopic “Seberg,” starring Kristen Stewart, to Shia LaBeouf’s autobiographical “Honeyboy,” to “The Bikeriders,” about the rise and fall of a Chicago motorcycle gang in the 1960s.
“One of the joys of being a producer is that you get to support lots of different artists in lots of different genres,” he said. “I think I would be frustrated if I’d only done one genre.”
That said, one look at the long list of projects that Kavanaugh-Jones has undertaken as a producer makes it clear that he has a special appreciation for horror.
“What’s interesting to me about horror is that it’s one of the few genres that can be utterly original,” he said. “In fact, the audience is primed for originality in the horror space. So if you can make those movies at a smart price, you can still have a huge impact at the box office. If you look at movies like ‘Talk to Me’ or ‘Barbarian’ or ‘Sinister’ and ‘Insidious,’ those are all movies that had very humble beginnings, were totally original ideas from their creators, and broke out to be really significant. That’s what’s so cool about horror right now. ”
