Chris Columbus is well aware that his producer credit on Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu has prompted a few double takes from the audience. One would assume that the filmmaker behind two Home Alone films, Mrs. Doubtfire and two Harry Potter pics would have little overlap with Eggers’ idiosyncratic approach to genre films. But one of the goals of Maiden Voyage, Chris and his daughter Eleanor’s production company, is to show that filmmakers contain multitudes.
The journey to father-daughter Columbus producing their third film for Eggers — and fourteenth overall under the Maiden Voyage banner — hinges on several different factors. The first is producorial philosophy, which Chris established during the course of making the film franchise-launching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001). The filmmaker wasn’t completely satisfied with the Devil’s Snare sequence, so he requested some CG-related augmentations that an executive producer ultimately rebuffed.
“One of the executives said to me, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter if that [Devil’s Snare] scene is not as good as the other scenes in the film. It’s fine,’” Columbus recalls to The Hollywood Reporter. “So I told myself that I’m never going to say that if I’m producing for someone else. This is probably going to be the death knell for Maiden Voyage as a company, but our philosophy is we never say no to the director. I’m not kidding. And that attitude of ours has been very successful in helping Rob [Eggers] realize his vision [for Nosferatu].”
The next domino to fall en route to Maiden Voyage was Chris’ involvement in NYU’s Chris Columbus-Richard Vague Film Production Fund, which provided a grant for first-time filmmakers. For five years, the NYU alum helped decide the recipients of the fund, and the program boasts the feature directorial debuts of now-decorated filmmakers including Oscar winner Chloé Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me) and Dee Rees (Pariah). But much to his chagrin, Chris had little interaction with the filmmakers whose careers he helped jump-start. Thus, he made a pivotal phone call to Eleanor, who, following her own graduation from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, was paying her dues by way of the independent film scene in New York. 48 hours later, she relocated to San Francisco to co-found Maiden Voyage with her father.
The other reason Chris recruited Eleanor was his own recognition that successful filmmakers can often fall into a pattern of narrow-mindedness as they get older. As a result, Eleanor could provide insight and counsel on behalf of a younger generation, and her shared influence is reflected throughout Maiden Voyage’s varied slate of films that includes Sian Heder’s debut Tallulah, Geremy Jasper’s Patti Cake$, Karen Maine’s Yes, God, Yes and Sean Wang’s Didi. Chris also believes that Eleanor and Maiden Voyage’s roster of young filmmakers have helped him evolve his own filmmaking techniques.
“At a certain point with successful filmmakers, their tunnel vision starts to close in, and the ego starts to grow: ‘I know best. I’ve figured it all out.’ But the truth is that they don’t [know best],” Chris Columbus says. “There’s a lot of filmmakers in their fifties and sixties that, quite frankly, can’t get to where they were when they were 30 or 40 years old. Why is that? Quentin Tarantino would say, ‘Oh, you can only make movies between your thirties and forties,’ but I don’t necessarily believe that. I believe that it’s a loss of passion and a loss of listening to everyone else around you. I’m not saying that the film [The Thursday Murder Club] I just finished directing is the best film I’ve ever made, but by listening and learning from younger people, I have faith that it will keep me working for quite some time.”
As for Eggers, the familial producing partners met the filmmaker during post-production on his (eventual) breakout debut, The Witch (2015). He’d hit a snag, and so he sought outside guidance to get the Anya Taylor-Joy-led film over the hump. The Columbuses did just that, establishing rapport in the process, and their attention soon turned to Eggers’ Nosferatu reimagining. Development would progress and regress for nearly a decade, but the delay turned out to be a silver lining, as Eggers has admitted that he needed to fine-tune his chops on The Lighthouse and The Northman first. (The Columbuses also produced The Lighthouse.) Furthermore, the studios that predated Focus Features didn’t fully support his vision.
“We were with a couple of places that didn’t really get the film. We received some hideous suggestions about who should star in the film and plot points and script points, but Rob was very adamant about not changing anything,” Chris Columbus shares. “It’s not that he wouldn’t change a word of his script, but he had a vision. He’s lived with it since he was nine years old for God’s sake. So he wasn’t going to shift, and that was scary to a few people at other studios. When we got to Focus, Kujo [Peter Kujawski] and Kiska [Higgs] were so supportive of Rob’s vision.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Chris discusses how Eggers’ horror films are a return to his early days, before offering his thoughts on Macaulay Culkin’s recent re-embrace of Home Alone. Eleanor then addresses her own unique relationship with her father’s work.
Chris, Nosferatu’s Christmas Day opening is quite the tonal shift from the four decades’ worth of family entertainment you’ve directed and/or produced for release during the holidays. Is this a sign of the times?
CHRIS COLUMBUS For me, it’s not really a jump in genre. It goes back to where I started. The original Gremlins script was a hard R-rated movie that Steven [Spielberg] rightfully convinced me would be more commercial and more accessible to people around the world if it were PG-13 and I cut the scene where [Billy’s] mother’s head rolls down the stairs. So that was back in 1983, and it’s been in my DNA ever since. I don’t know if I held it back willingly, or if I was just attracted to certain projects that weren’t necessarily as dark as Nosferatu, but it’s a logical progression. When Rob and I met ten years ago on The Witch, we really bonded over our love of Hammer horror films. So that started the conversation, and then all horror films became part of our conversation. That’s really when Nosferatu first came up, and we’ve been supporting Rob’s vision and trying to get it made for a decade.
Eleanor, when you started producing together under the Maiden Voyage banner ten years ago, were you the one who steered Chris toward the independent space?
ELEANOR COLUMBUS Oh, I would love to take credit for that, but absolutely not. What Chris and I both have in common is a passion for storytelling, and so there’s a lot of arguing about what project we’re going to get involved in or not get involved in. After I graduated film school at NYU, I started in independent film. I worked and PA’d for a director called Peter Glanz and a couple other production companies until Chris called me with the idea to start Maiden Voyage together. Originally, Chris was involved with the Columbus-Vague Award at NYU. Once a year, he’d take an allocation of funds and essentially green-light a filmmaker’s first feature. So he had some great experiences that led to Dee Rees’ Pariah (2011) and Chloé Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015).
CHRIS COLUMBUS Basically, there was a whole committee, and a billionaire guy doled out his money. So I was the head of the creative committee that decides who receives the money to make their first feature, and that process would last for two days. A year later, I’d get a DVD in the mail from the filmmaker, and while it was great to be a part of it all, I never really made any deep connections with the filmmakers. I never got a chance to work with those filmmakers. So I got frustrated at a certain point because I wanted a closer hands-on relationship with the filmmakers, and that’s when I called Eleanor about Maiden Voyage.
ELEANOR COLUMBUS I was still living in New York when he called on a Wednesday, and I was on a plane to San Francisco that Friday to start the company. We’ve now been working together for about ten years, and Nosferatu is our fourteenth film together.
As mentioned, the third film the two of you produced together was Rob Eggers’ The Witch, so how did you first link up with him?
CHRIS COLUMBUS Well, we read the script, and we saw Rob’s lookbook and conceptual art. I was more intrigued by the conceptual art; I didn’t really get the script at the time. We also didn’t get involved until Rob was in post-production and needed to finish the film. He sent Eleanor a copy of the film, and as we were in our San Francisco office, we watched the first cut of The Witch around two in the afternoon. We watched it on a 32-inch television in bright sunlight, and we were terrified. It was as if we were in the complete darkness of a movie theater, and in a sense, we saw the future of filmmaking with Robert Eggers. So that’s when we decided to help Rob finish his film. We just felt that this was a filmmaker we desperately needed to support, and because of that, The Witch got finished and released. We struck up a friendship with Rob because of it, and that crystallized the beginning of our relationship.
Based on your filmography, was Rob slightly puzzled at first that you’d be interested in his work? Did you have to tell him the same story you just told about the original Gremlins script?
CHRIS COLUMBUS He already knew it. The problem for a lot of filmmakers is we sometimes get pigeonholed, rightly so, because we continue to make certain kinds of films. And it’s fair for most people to say, “Well, why would you do something like this? Why would you support this?” But the whole idea of Maiden Voyage was to support filmmakers with different styles and visions, and were working in different genres than I was. And the fact is, when you find a good filmmaker, or certainly a filmmaker who’s had some longevity, they usually have a strong sense of film history. Marty Scorsese and I shared a teacher at NYU named Haig Manoogian, and he was critical in the fact that I eventually became a filmmaker. Obviously, Martin Scorsese and I are two completely different filmmakers, but we both had that teacher who instilled a love of film history in us. I know I sound like I’m working for NYU’s alumni office, but [Tisch School of the Arts] does instill that sense of film history in its students, including Eleanor. It’s important to bring forward everything that came before us, and I’m saying all this because my love of film history enables me to appreciate all genres. The films that got me into making films are not the kinds of films I make: Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather, The Conversation. These movies pushed me forward and made me want to make movies, not necessarily the same kinds of movies, but they were inspirational to me. So, as a result of that, we want to support all kinds of filmmakers and films, such as The Witch, Sian Heder’s first film Tallulah and Patti Cake$, which is unlike anything I’ve ever done. We produced documentaries called Menashe and The Exiles, so we’re all over the map in terms of genres. We just require three things: a great script, a strong first short film and a filmmaker with confidence. You don’t want a filmmaker on set who can’t deal with 200 people. That’s a disaster.
Eleanor, let’s back up for a moment. Did the path to film school always feel like a foregone conclusion? Or did you resist the family business for a period of time?
ELEANOR COLUMBUS It was something that always felt so natural to me and nothing to run away from. Quite a bit of my childhood was spent on set, so I had the privilege of growing up and learning from Chris. I also am a huge advocate for film school, especially NYU’s Tisch School Of The Arts, where I further developed my understanding of the craft and dug deep into film history, which was an invaluable part of my education.
Shortly after The Witch (2015) and before The Lighthouse (2019), there was an attempt to set up Nosferatu. What happened?
ELEANOR COLUMBUS As soon as we got involved with Rob and helped finish The Witch, we automatically had this shorthand. It was as if we’d known each other for a very long time, so we just knew we wanted to continue working with each other. We set up Nosferatu ten years ago, and unfortunately, it got to a certain place where it just didn’t happen. We eventually got involved with Focus, and I cannot speak more highly of them. They’re such a filmmaker-first studio, and they really shepherded this project through to release. Of course, we’ve all been so passionate about making this film for ten years, but this is the moment it should have been made. Rob touches on this, too. Waiting to tell this story made sense for the film and his creative sensibilities.
What else allowed for the stars to align finally?
CHRIS COLUMBUS It really was Focus Features. We were with a couple of places that didn’t really get the film. We received some hideous suggestions about who should star in the film and plot points and script points, but Rob was very adamant about not changing anything. It’s not that he wouldn’t change a word of his script, but he had a vision. He’s lived with it since he was nine years old for God’s sake. So he wasn’t going to shift, and that was scary to a few people at other studios. When we got to Focus, Kujo [Peter Kujawski] and Kiska [Higgs] were so supportive of Rob’s vision, and they are, as Eleanor said, filmmaker-first. They’re beyond filmmaker friendly. They support the vision of the filmmaker, and Maiden Voyage was formed because we wanted to be the kind of producers that could help a filmmaker realize their vision without the interference of certain studios. But we had that type of support from Focus, so it was a situation where everyone was working toward helping Rob realize his vision.
To prevent the Internet from running wild, the “hideous” casting suggestions had nothing to do with Anya Taylor-Joy and Harry Styles, right? They were both attached to the film at certain points until Lily-Rose Depp and Nick Hoult replaced them.
ELEANOR COLUMBUS None of the above!
CHRIS COLUMBUS I wish I could tell you who we’re talking about, but it was no one that Rob suggested. They were actors of an American descent, who are probably in their sixties, who have absolutely no connection to Count Orlock whatsoever, if that helps.
As you touched on moments ago, when you’re working with a director who’s been dreaming about this project for most of his life and planning it out in meticulous fashion, how does one present him with compromises based on the realities of production?
CHRIS COLUMBUS Well, this is probably going to be the death knell for Maiden Voyage as a company, but our philosophy is we never say no to the director. We find a way to make it happen. I’m not kidding. With budget, we tell the filmmaker, “Don’t worry about it; we’ll worry about it.” That has been the way we deal with filmmakers. We don’t say, “You can’t have what you want.” We instead say, “We want you to have what you want. We will find a way to get it.” And that attitude of ours has been very successful in helping Rob realize his vision. I’ve been with so many producers and studio executives in the past who’ve said, “I’m sorry, you can’t have this.” I hate it. On Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I was upset with the sequence where the kids fall into the [Devil’s Snare]. The scene wasn’t working, and I said, “I need to enhance it with a little CGI.” And one of the executives said to me, “Well, it doesn’t matter if that scene is not as good as the other scenes in the film. It’s fine.” And I thought, “I never want to have that attitude. Every scene has to be great, and you have to help the filmmaker realize their vision.” So when I heard that about my own film, I told myself that I’m never going to say that if I’m producing for someone else. I instead say to the filmmaker, “We have to help you find the best possible way of getting this made.” So it’s an attitude of positivity, and Eleanor has it as well. We are both undying supporters of our filmmakers.
ELEANOR COLUMBUS Completely. At Maiden Voyage, there’s a level of protection that Chris can bring from his 40-plus years of experience in the industry. It’s nice to have that safety. We care about getting your story told, and that’s the most important thing.
CHRIS COLUMBUS The key for wanting to work with Eleanor, as opposed to producers my own age, was embracing this concept of youth. At a certain point with successful filmmakers, their tunnel vision starts to close in, and the ego starts to grow: “I know best. I’ve figured it all out.” But the truth is that they don’t [know best]. There’s a lot of filmmakers in their fifties and sixties that, quite frankly, can’t get to where they were when they were 30 or 40 years old. Why is that? Quentin Tarantino would say, “Oh, you can only make movies between your thirties and forties,” but I don’t necessarily believe that. I believe that it’s a loss of passion and a loss of listening to everyone else around you. I’m not saying that the film I just finished directing is the best film I’ve ever made, but by listening and learning from younger people, I have faith that it will keep me working for quite some time.
ELEANOR COLUMBUS Yeah, Chris directed The Thursday Murder Club over the summer, and being on the Nosferatu set with Rob every single day in the Czech Republic changed his relationship with directing.
CHRIS COLUMBUS Rob and Jarin Blaschke, the cinematographer, basically storyboarded the entire film for over a year before we even stepped foot on set. Scenes where two people are having a conversation were storyboarded in heavy choreography with the camera. So the actors weren’t dictating where they’re going to be moving within the scene; it was the camera and the director after planning it out for quite some time. So it was a new way for me to work. I usually prefer the Sidney Lumet method of bringing the actors in, walking through the scene and figuring out where everyone is comfortable. So I had to get on board and understand Rob’s process. One day, we were in a room the size of a toilet stall, and Rob brought a crane into the room, which took up 60 percent of the space where two actors were having a conversation. I said, “What the hell are you doing? You don’t need to use a crane in this particular sequence.” Granted, we used a crane in every sequence in Nosferatu. And Rob said, “No, you’ll see when we finish it.” So we spent the day working on that beautiful scene, and five months later, on the set of Thursday Murder Club, I brought in a crane for a scene with two actors in a room that was the size of a toilet stall. So I really learned from all those days on Nosferatu with Rob.
To be honest, I didn’t know Lily-Rose Depp could deliver a performance like this. In fairness, she’d never really had an opportunity like this prior to her casting. Did you know you were getting this level of a performance when you cast her?
CHRIS COLUMBUS I kind of knew it in the first reading. Rob had met her and worked with her [prior to the table reading], but we hadn’t seen anything yet. This was a Rob situation. We knew Lily had done some other work in films and television series, but we hadn’t really seen anything else. We then knew during the first couple of days of shooting that we were in for something extraordinarily special with Lily’s performance. She really is amazing in the film, and she takes it to another level. Actors can surprise you. With the right director, they can show you what they’re really made of.
ELEANOR COLUMBUS And Lily’s passion for the project was absolutely insane, from her body work to her accent work to everything. She threw herself into the film, and I also don’t think she’s had a role or an opportunity to shine like this. She’s exceptional in this film.
CHRIS COLUMBUS We were doing press in the U.K. and a couple of journalists were like, “Wait, we thought you were British.” And, for the Brits, that’s a heavy compliment. They’re always like, “Oh, you sound like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.” They’re always criticizing Americans’ British accents.
If it wasn’t for the closing credits and web sites like THR, I wouldn’t know that Bill Skarsgard is actually in this movie. Part of me wishes that reveal could’ve been saved for the closing credits, but that’s obviously impractical in this age of information overload.
CHRIS COLUMBUS Focus hasn’t really shown Count Orlock in the trailers and marketing materials, and that’s a rarity today. Eleanor and I had an opportunity to spend some time with Bill during the script reading, and then we were there for the entire process of deciding what Orlock’s look was going to be and how the costume was fitting and all of that. So we were with him, and he was Bill. But then he came to set with that voice, wearing heels that made him about 6’ 8’’. He towered over the entire crew and walked with a presence that was totally terrifying. I usually have a pretty good rapport with actors on set, but it took me about four weeks to actually be able to approach him and say hello. He was that terrifying in person, and he completely lost himself in this role. One day, in Orlock’s dining room, I finally talked to Bill [in costume], and I said, “Do you think that Orlock has someone in the kitchen to prepare this feast?” Bill then went into this whole shtick about Orlock cooking, and it was a comedy routine that went on for five minutes, completely breaking the ice with all of us on set. Seconds later, he was Count Orlock again. and we were all running for the shadows again. You really can’t see the connection between the human being and the creature you see on screen.
ELEANOR COLUMBUS It was all fun and games until that first day of shooting when his voice was ten octaves lower in costume. I didn’t sleep for two weeks. (Laughs.) I produced Nosferatu and have been involved with it for almost ten years, but I still don’t believe Bill is in this movie.
Chris, there’s a line in Alexander Payne’s Sideways where Paul Giamatti’s character condemns merlot, and ever since then, it’s dramatically affected the real-life demand for merlot. I bring that up because Mrs. Doubtfire forever altered my relationship to cayenne pepper. I consider it a bad omen now.
CHRIS COLUMBUS (Laughs.) I appreciate that, and I am so sorry for that. I just finished directing Thursday Murder Club with Pierce Brosnan, and ironically, Pierce is the comedic character in the film. He was the straight man in Mrs. Doubtfire, but that scene where he chokes on cayenne pepper is what convinced me that he’s really funny. So I still love cayenne pepper, and I’m glad to be part of the world’s growing fear of cayenne pepper.
Conversely, I desperately want Kraft mac and cheese every time I watch Home Alone, and the Talkboy from Home Alone 2 was a must-have Christmas gift at the time. So you have created demand as well.
CHRIS COLUMBUS On Home Alone, we couldn’t get arrested for product placement, so we were stuck with Juicy Juice, Kraft mac and cheese and that was it. No one would support us. We had no merchandising. After its success, Home Alone 2 came along, and suddenly, there were Talkboys everywhere.
Macaulay Culkin is currently doing a Home Alone screening tour around the States. The last handful of years, he’s really re-embraced that time in his life. There was a stretch where he had to distance himself given how overwhelming that entire experience was for him.
CHRIS COLUMBUS Yeah, it’s heartwarming to see that he’s hosting these screenings and embracing it. He’s got a family of his own now, and he realizes the impact that Home Alone has on kids and families. The fact that Home Alone has this longevity is really important, and it means a lot to me, because, at the time, the movie was not critically well received. It just happened to be successful enough that it ran for [seven] months. It was number one until February 3 [1991]. But it’s really meaningful to me that the movie is continuing to play 34 years later. It’s also meaningful for me that Kieran Culkin has become such a great actor. He was also in both Home Alone pictures, and I thought his performance in A Real Pain was phenomenal. I would still like to see Mack act more often. I haven’t spoken to him in a while, but I read that he’s doing [Fallout season two]. So it would be great to see him embrace acting again because he’s really great.
Eleanor, were you able to have the connection that most ’80s and ’90s kids have with Chris’ films? Or were you too close to them to be able to rewatch them every holiday season like a lot of people do?
ELEANOR COLUMBUS (Laughs.) It’s an embarrassment of riches. My dad has made some great movies, some timeless classics. I love them, but I have a different perspective than the usual audience member. Watching his films is a mixture of pride, nostalgia and memory. To me, Chris’ films are so personal. In college, if I missed him, I’d throw on Mrs. Doubtfire. When I see those films, it’s like getting a warm hug from my dad.
Chris, your next directorial project is the aforementioned The Thursday Murder Club, which is not only a reunion with cayenne pepper enthusiast Pierce Brosnan, but also Steven Spielberg via Amblin. What else can you say about Maiden Voyage’s next moves?
CHRIS COLUMBUS Unfortunately, we can’t talk about the projects that aren’t made yet, but Thursday Murder Club could be out next October. I really don’t know exactly when we’re planning to release the film because I literally just finished my 10-week cut today. So we’ll preview it for an audience and see how that goes, but that’s what Maiden Voyage is focusing on now. Because we spent so much time on Nosferatu and didn’t develop anything, 2025’s Sundance is the first one we’re going to miss in quite some time. But we are looking at scripts, and we’re hoping to have one or two projects enter production in 2025.
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Nosferatu is now playing in movie theaters.
English (US) ·