Inside the Bold, Blues-Infused Vision That Went From Pitch to Production in Just 3 Months
Ryan Coogler Sinners movie Ryan Coogler isn’t calling it a miracle—but it sure sounds like one.
He’s not talking about convincing Warner Bros. to back Sinners, a $90 million period thriller that fuses Southern blues, family ties, and supernatural terror. Nor is he referencing the rare studio deal that will revert the film’s copyright to him after 25 years. What Coogler can’t quite believe is how they made the movie at all—on an impossible timeline, no less.
“We’ve gotten addicted to threading needles,” Ryan Coogler Sinners movie Coogler laughs during a Zoom call with Variety, joined by his wife and Proximity Media co-founder Zinzi Coogler and longtime partner Sev Ohanian. “Every project we do feels like it shouldn’t be possible. But it all comes down to relationships.”
The Dream Team Behind the Madness
Ryan Coogler Sinners movie That “relationship” core is what makes Sinners feel like a home-cooked meal. The film brought back many of Coogler’s trusted collaborators—composer Ludwig Göransson, costume designer Ruth E. Carter, production designer Hannah Beachler, and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw. “These people aren’t just our colleagues—they’re our family,” Coogler says. In fact, Sinners was secretly referred to as “Grilled Cheese” during production. “We brought in all the best cooks,” he adds.
The Plot: One Night. Two Brothers. A Juke Joint Full of Devils.
Ryan Coogler Sinners movie Set in 1932 Mississippi Delta, Sinners unfolds over the course of a single day and night. Michael B. Jordan plays dual roles as the Smokestack twins, Smoke and Stack—Ryan Coogler Sinners movie World War I veterans returning home after working for Al Capone in Chicago. Their dream? Open a juke joint and start a new chapter.
They enlist their cousin Sammie (played by newcomer Miles Caton), a preacher’s son with blues in his soul, to perform that night. But what starts as a celebration spirals into something far more dangerous when Sammie’s music literally “pierces the veil between life and death,” exposing the revelers to otherworldly terrors lurking just outside.
The Scene Everyone’s Talking About
Ryan Coogler Sinners movie One particularly surreal scene in the film’s trailer features Sammie’s performance burning down the house—literally. “People had big reactions reading that,” Coogler recalls. “That’s when I knew—maybe we’ve got something special.”
But executing that moment took an army. Without relying on pre-vis tech, Coogler used old-school Sidney Lumet-style rehearsals, physically mapping the space with his team. “You gotta walk it, hold the camera, see what the trouble spots are,” he says. Ryan Coogler Sinners movie “We had to coordinate costumes, music, dancers—everything.”
Even Ludwig Göransson and his wife Serena performed live on set, scoring the scene in real-time. “That sequence is the one people are going to talk about,” Ohanian predicts. “It made those endless weekend rehearsals so worth it.”
A Nearly Impossible Timeline
Believe it or not, the idea for Sinners was born in October 2023 during Proximity’s company retreat. “Once I told them I wanted to do this, I had to actually write it,” Coogler laughs. He delivered the script by Christmas.
From there, the team kicked into overdrive—quietly coordinating with creative partners before anything was official. “I was sneaking out of the retreat to pitch Ruth [Carter] the movie,” Zinzi admits. They even began scouting locations and building budgets before studio deals were in place.
Ryan Coogler Sinners movie In January, they pitched the film at WME’s offices. A bidding war broke out. Warner Bros. landed the rights in early February. Cameras were rolling in Louisiana by April.
The Blues, Family, and a Spark of the Supernatural
So, what inspired it all?
After the emotional press tour for Wakanda Forever, Coogler found himself at home, soaking in the blues. “I was listening nonstop,” he says. “It reminded me of my late uncle James. He wasn’t a musician, but blues was his life.”
One day, he stumbled across Howlin’ Wolf’s Wang Dang Doodle—a rowdy anthem about a party full of characters with gangster names like Razor-Toting Jim and Butcher Knife-Toting Annie. “I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to do a one-day movie, where a bunch of dangerous people throw a party—only to meet something even more dangerous.”
Ryan Coogler Sinners movie It was a story that felt both specific and universal. “When people think 1930s Mississippi, they think hardship, segregation. But folks were still living, still throwing parties,” he says. “I wanted to show that joy—then flip it on its head.”
A Vampire Tale Unlike Any Other
The vampire? That came later.
“I wanted a villain that reflected the movie’s core themes—family, community, survival,” Coogler says. “It wasn’t enough to just have someone biting necks.”
So he built characters pulled from his life: the old blues musician who self-soothes, the preacher’s kid, the conjurer, the woman who can pass as white, the juke joint twins. “There’s a little of me in every character,” he says. “And a lot of people I know.”
Even the vampire was designed to exist in dialogue with the story—not just as a monster, but a symbol. “These characters think they’re the most dangerous people in the world. Then something shows up that challenges that.”
Coogler’s First Truly Original Film
Ryan Coogler Sinners movie While Fruitvale Station was based on real events, Creed spun off from an existing franchise, and Black Panther was rooted in Marvel mythology—Sinners is Coogler’s first fully original feature. “It’s very much me,” he says. “I love the supernatural, I love period stories, I love communities. It’s everything I’m into rolled into one.”
The film marks a major moment for Proximity, too. “This is the culmination of everything we’ve been working toward over the last 12 years,” says Ohanian. “We go after projects that seem too hard to make. Sinners was that.”
Zinzi Coogler agrees. “This movie is our biggest swing yet,” Ryan Coogler Sinners movie she says. “And our most personal.”
