Very little of Johnny Was is typical, least of all its genesis. Produced and financed by Ben Katz (Wharton and Nursing '01, MBA '02), the film provides a down-and-dirty look at a violent urban ghetto in the United Kingdom - and launches the filmmaking career of a notable Penn grad.
With Johnny, Katz, still in his mid-20s, establishes himself as something of a Renaissance man in the independent film scene. "Basically, I found a script, found a director, I raised the money, hired the actors and made the movie," Katz says. That's no easy feat when the cast includes Snatch's Vinnie Jones, Roger Daltrey of The Who, and boxing legend Lennox Lewis.
Using his Wharton education, Katz first set out to learn the tools of the filmmaker's trade. After making contacts at Deutsche Bank and Creative Artists Agency - "the Goldman Sachs of talent agencies" - Katz formed his own Los Angeles movie house, Ben Katz Productions. "I never knew anything about entertainment. I'm a movie fan but I'm not a movie freak. I knew that I liked the negotiation and the pace of investment banking but I hated pretty much everything else about it. So I looked at Hollywood and that seemed like a pretty open negotiating platform, since the marginal cost of creating another viewer is zero. It's kind of like a Wild Wild West, you can create different financial structures and things that can potentially make money if you're smart about it."
Katz acted quickly after a friend recommended first-time screenwriter Brendan Foley's script. Taking advantage of the significant tax incentives for filming in Belfast, Ireland, Katz and director Mark Hammond flew to the U.K. for principal photography. Belfast doubled for Brixton, a Jamaican ghetto in South London, and the home to the titular character (Jones), an ex-con and former IRA terrorist trying to make ends meet without skirting the law. "Realistically, it doesn't make financial sense to shoot somewhere where it isn't appropriate to set the movie. But [the Belfast set] looked like old British buildings, which is pretty much what Brixton looks like."
The film's gritty look meshes well with the tragic characters with whom Johnny associates: a disgruntled bomber (Patrick Bergin), an addict (Samantha Mumba), and a flamboyant Jamaican gangster (ER's Eriq La Salle). Predictably, street violence rocked the production more than once, a fact that lends weight to the movie's bloody shootouts. "The first day that Lennox Lewis was on set, we were filming in Belfast, right near the Peace Wall between the Protestants and the Catholics in the Shankill district. Some Protestant kids came up banging a hammer on the Wall, and all of the sudden some Catholic kids started throwing rocks, then bigger Protestant kids started throwing bricks, and there were hundreds and hundreds of bricks flying through the air. [Religious conflict] is still very real there."
Returning to the U.S. after five turbulent months in Ireland, Katz is now busier than ever. After finishing post-production on the low-budget horror picture Nailed, he will begin working on next year's Hereafter. A drama set in the wake of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, David Strathairn (Best Actor Academy Award nominee for last year's Good Night, and Good Luck) recently attached himself to the lead role. Compare those accomplishments to what his Wharton peers are doing 100 hours a week at the investment banks, and the prospects for Penn's young finance majors just got a bit more interesting.
Johnny Was screens at Houston Hall's Hall of Flags on September 27.
