Sam Pressman Talks ‘The Crow’ Reboot, Continuing His Father’s Legacy And Why Industry Should Look To Embrace AI

deadline.com:

Growing up as the only son of Ed Pressman, the prolific Hollywood independent producer behind more than 90 major productions including Wall Street, American Psycho and The Crow, it’s fair to say that the film business has always been in Sam Pressman’s blood.  “As a little kid, I got to be on set a lot and feel that beautiful sense of live shoots,” says Pressman, now CEO of Pressman Film, which was established by his late father in 1969. “Movies are deep inside of me, but I didn’t always believe that I would go into film.

I really loved it more as an art. I remember taking a silent film class in my freshman year of college where we watched the really tough silent documentary Man With a Movie Camera and we studied it as a cultural phenomenon – it was fascinating.”  But his father’s love of the independent film community and his pioneering ability to carve out an abundant business outside of the Hollywood studio system proved highly contagious.

Now, nearly eight months after the revered veteran producer passed away peacefully, Sam Pressman is readying to steer the company into a new chapter that will honor his father’s legacy in the indie sphere whilst also exploring savvy ways to exploit the company’s rich IP library and embrace the possibilities that new technology, such as AI, can bring the indie world.

It’s clear the young exec, who recently worked alongside his father to produce Daliland with Ben Kingsley, has a deep love and affection for his father when he speaks with Deadline over a Zoom interview from Toronto. “Getting to work for my father and learn from him was the greatest privilege and opportunity,” he says. “I just felt like when there were opportunities to go into other directions, I thought the best thing