Ryan Coogler's horror movie, Sinners, was one of the hottest topics of the 2025 movie schedule, partly because of the history-making deal he made with the studio. Coogler received first-dollar gross points, had final cut, and will own the movie outright after 25 years–an almost unheard of set of circumstances that filmmaking icon Spike Lee is reacting to, revealing the “only” one of his films he owns outright.
In a new interview promoting his latest work, his fifth collaboration with Denzel Washington, Highest 2 Lowest, Lee saluted Coogler and the executives who backed Sinners, calling the move both gutsy and brilliant. Speaking to Business Insider, the She’s Gotta Have It director shared:
I commend Ryan and Zinzi, his wife, for pulling that power move. It's great. I didn't know anything about that until I read the story about it. I think it was the smart move. I know that the companies that passed on it, they wished they hadn't. You have to give a shout-out to Pam [Abdy] and Michael [De Luca], the co-chairs of Warner Bros. They bet on Black.
If you missed the headlines earlier this year, Coogler struck a highly unusual studio pact on Sinners, with a bit of help from Tyler Perry. The bet has paid off creatively and commercially. Sinners (available to stream with an HBO Max subscription) is a bloody, blues-soaked genre swing, and opened above projections and sparked months of conversation around authorship, IP, and how legacy studios court A-list storytellers.
The Malcolm X filmmaker also used the moment to highlight how rare true ownership is for directors of his generation. Asked if any of his films have reverted back to him, he was blunt, continuing:
I own ‘She's Gotta Have It,’ that's the only one.
That admission lands with extra weight against the Black Panther director’s historic deal, because for decades, even iconic filmmakers have seen their classics locked inside corporate libraries.
Lee’s 1986 indie breakthrough was self-financed and retains a unique place in his catalog. She's Gotta Have It is still one of his best films, even if it's not the one most strangers still bring up to him as their favorite, hence why it’s the lone title he controls outright. Meanwhile, Sinners is positioned to become one of the few modern, studio-released originals that will eventually be creator-owned.
There’s a broader storyline here, too. Lee’s shout-out to Warner Bros. co-chairs Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca underscores how executive risk tolerance shapes the movies we get. Backing an original, R-rated, star-driven swing and letting the filmmaker keep meaningful back-end and future rights wasn’t the safe choice on paper. But as the Atlanta-born moviemaker puts it, they “bet on Black,” and it paid off for everyone involved.
For the Chi-Raq helmer, who’s currently riding a new wave of attention with Highest 2 Lowest, Coogler’s win reads like a hopeful data point in a business that isn't afraid to say “no” to anything that isn’t a sequel or a new superhero movie.
Spike Lee’s latest work, Highest 2 Lowest, is streaming for everyone with an Apple TV+ subscription.
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