How It’s What’s Inside Sold for $17M to Netflix

It’s What’s Inside filmmaker Greg Jardin spent eight years trying to land $10 million for a still-unproduced sci-fi comedy. In 2016, he then pivoted to a genre-bending idea that is now his feature directorial debut, spending another eight years trying to get it in front of a festival audience. That opportunity finally came at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024, and within three days of It’s What’s Inside’s world premiere, Jardin and his producing team landed a $17 million acquisition deal from Netflix.

Jardin — who’s had a healthy career making shorts, music videos and promos for Netflix projects such as Wednesday and When They See Us — had modest expectations for his comedic sci-fi thriller leading up to Sundance. In fact, his only concern was that his $2.5 million film didn’t create a loss for his partners at Such Content, Kate Andrews’ Boldly Go Productions and Colman and Raul Domingo’s Edith Productions.

“We got into Sundance two months early, and I was shocked when I got the call because the movie wasn’t even done yet. I truly didn’t even think that we would get in. It just seemed like such a pipe dream after sending off [an early cut] on their website,” Jardin tells The Hollywood Reporter. 

The film’s CAA sales agent, Benjamin Kramer, opted to temper Jardin’s expectations based on the post-Covid marketplace and how similar films performed over the last couple years.

“Our sales agent, Ben Kramer at CAA, was like, ‘Basically, if it doesn’t sell in one night, don’t worry. Talk to Me sold in three days, and that was considered lightning fast,’” Jardin recalls Kramer saying. “But then we were very fortunate to get our first offer 24 hours after our screening, which was just insane.”

Jardin, from the comfort of various Park City Airbnbs, then watched Kramer go to work until Netflix won the bidding war with $17 million.

“[Kramer] did his Succession thing, which was, essentially, to pit the bidders against one another and drive the price up. It was very eye-opening for someone like me who’s very new to the actual business aspect of this industry,” Jardin shares. 

The elevator pitch for It’s What’s Inside is that it’s Bodies Bodies Bodies meets Talk to Me, as a bunch of former college friends gather for a pre-wedding celebration and a bit of house party debauchery. But instead of playing a party game involving faux murder or demonic possession, a suitcase is introduced that contains a body-swapping machine. And as one might expect, things quickly go awry.

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Jardin, who additionally served as editor and VFX artist, also discusses Colman Domingo’s role in getting It’s What’s Inside made, before addressing whether a sequel to the well-received pic is in order.

You’re one of the many Florida State alums who’s gone on to work in the entertainment industry: Barry Jenkins, Wes Ball, Amy Seimetz, David Robert Mitchell to name a few. Your senior thesis short film, The Problem with Fiber Optics (2005), then got the ball rolling for you as far as representation, and you’ve had a healthy career doing music videos, shorts and Netflix promos. Eventually, in 2016, you started to brainstorm It’s What’s Inside. Did you just realize that you needed to develop a low-budget project if you were ever going to get a shot at feature directing?

Exactly. When I first got to L.A. and I had Fiber Optics, I got representation, and we were shopping/developing this other $10 million-budgeted sci-fi comedy feature for eight years. We took it around to a bunch of different producers, trying to get financing and cast. And essentially, after eight years of not being able to get $10 million, I was like, “Man, I need to write a one location film that can be made as inexpensively as possible.” So that was the start of It’s What Inside. 

So you wrote the script and you likely showed it to anyone and everyone. Was Colman Domingo’s inner circle the first group to see the vision and get it off the ground?

I spent all of 2016 writing it, and in 2017, my agent and I started sending it around town. We had some interest. It was the kind of thing where people were like, “Yeah, I like it, but maybe try this rewrite.” And then you just wouldn’t hear from people. So there were a lot of fits and starts until I met one of our producers, Kate Andrews. She was working for a production company called KatzSmith, and she was one of the people I sent the script to. She ended up working for Colman at Edith Productions as his development executive, and she basically gave it to him a year after I had given it to her. He then watched some of the short-form Netflix stuff I did, specifically the work that I had done for Ava [DuVernay]. So he was interested in producing it, and then he had a line into a company called Such [Content], who ended up financing the project. 

Did Colman suggest Alycia Debnam-Carey’s casting since they worked together on Fear the Walking Dead?

Yeah, he had suggested her, and to be honest, I was a little skeptical, initially. I had only seen her on Fear the Walking Dead, and that character is so different from Nikki. I ended up meeting Alycia at a party that Colman threw, and I was like, “Oh, this person is totally different from how she is on Fear the Walking Dead.” So I was like, “Maybe she’d be great,” and then she turned out to be exceptional. So thank you, Colman, for that suggestion.

For the actors who auditioned, did they have to put multiple characters on tape given the body swap of it all?

For the majority of the actors who auditioned, I had them read at least two characters. Forbes was an open audition, and I initially asked everyone who auditioned for Forbes to also read for Cyrus. But David W. Thompson, as Forbes, was one of those cases where you knew five seconds into his audition. I was like, “Oh, this is the guy.” But I had him do Forbes and Cyrus, and almost all of our other auditions did two characters as well.

I’ve always liked David, especially his small parts in Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin and Green Room. But this might be the meatiest role I’ve seen him to do, and he really made the most of it.

He’s amazing in this, and I’m hoping that someone from Lucasfilm sees his performance and casts him as an Imperial officer. 

That’d be perfect.

I loved his casting in Green Room, and I’ve seen Green Room five times at this point. He really stood out to me as Tad, the guy at the beginning with the mohawk. I thought he was such an interesting actor, and when I saw his audition, I didn’t even realize that he was the same guy until I googled him. I was like, “Oh my God, that’s Tad from Green Room. That is insane.” So I am just thrilled with what he did, and I can’t wait for people to see what range he has. 

I always wished that Green Room had a coda where Tad discovers the chaos he caused by sending The Ain’t Rights to play at the skinhead club where his cousin worked.

(Laughs.) And his cousin got shot in the head!

Exactly! Tad’s reaction to the domino effect he inadvertently created would’ve been quite something.

I’ll see if I can make that happen. I’ll talk to Jeremy and David. 

Yes, it’ll be a special feature for your film. A Green Room special feature is what’s really inside.

(Laughs.) Yeah, I love it. Or it turns out that Forbes jumped into Tad’s body, and Green Room is actually a sequel to It’s What’s Inside. 

That’s even better! In the script, you had parentheticals for each body-swapper’s actual identity. You also had the characters wear Polaroids of their real identities, which benefits the audience most of all. On top of all that, you occasionally transition to these red light sequences that show the root identities for added clarity. Did you have a detailed rehearsal period so that you didn’t have to micromanage these complex dynamics on the day?

Absolutely. I asked for a week of rehearsal with the actors, which my producers made happen, and we had it at the house in Portland. So, like you said, had we not had that week, I just don’t think the movie would’ve come out the way in which it did. The actors all bonded with one another during that week. I tried to give them as much agency as I could to develop their characters’ isms and then teach those isms to the other actors [playing their characters]. I let them improvise a lot, too.

For instance, Dennis says “bro” a lot, which was not in the original script, but Gavin Leatherwood, who played Dennis, just kept saying it. And hearing it, I was like, “Oh, that’s a very quick and easy way to identify who Dennis is if someone says bro.” So I basically took all the bros out of the script and just gave them all to Dennis. A lot of those things came out of that rehearsal week after seeing what the actors did, so I rewrote the script a lot during that time.

Did Maya’s (Nina Bloomgarden) tendency to say “dude” also emerge from that rehearsal? 

I already had the dude thing in there, because that was called out as a plot point. Another idea that came out of rehearsal week was that Cyrus [James Morosini] has an inability to finish sentences. Reuben’s [Devon Terrell] exuberance and excitement and self-destructive willingness to party really came out of Devon’s ideas during that rehearsal week, so I can’t imagine doing another movie without having a rehearsal period. 

Every time I felt myself potentially losing track of it all, it’s like the movie read my mind and caught me back up to speed. So whatever you did to test the movie, you clearly received some invaluable feedback along the way.

Yeah, I found the test screenings to be extremely helpful. You could honestly feel what was and wasn’t working by just sitting in the room. But the comments during the talkbacks were super helpful in pointing out the plot points that were unclear, namely the stuff during the coda. It seemed like all of the red light stuff — the bits where we’d reveal who was in whose body — was working for the majority of the film, but it became clear during the test screenings that we could benefit from some additional red light stuff at the end. And luckily, the red light stuff was super easy to shoot since it only required one light. So we ended up doing some skeleton unit pickup/red light shots to put into the coda to ensure the clarity of where everyone ended up.

You wore many hats on this film besides writer-director. You also served as editor and VFX artist. Was this a cost-saving measure as much as it was a flex? 

(Laughs.) Well, I definitely started doing my own editing and VFX on earlier shorts and music videos as a cost-saving measure. “We can’t afford a VFX guy, so I guess I’ve got to learn [Adobe] After Effects for this video.” So, over the years, I started learning After Effects and eventually Cinema 4D, solely because I, or whatever production I was on, couldn’t afford anyone else. It really helped when I was able to shoot stuff as a director. I was able to make quicker decisions and understand the post workflow of it all. So it made me a more confident director, and by the time I was shooting It’s What’s Inside, I knew how it was more or less going to be edited and what we needed and didn’t need to get on set, VFX-wise.

So I wouldn’t say It’s What’s Inside was a cost-saving thing, exactly, but that said, I would prefer to never do VFX on my own movie again just because of the amount of time you’re sitting in front of the computer. So we’ll see on the next one, but I very much enjoy being able to see the entire workflow of a project: planning shots and knowing how they’re going to be edited to editing them and adding the music. We also had our composer, Andrew Hewitt, compose the music in advance. So we had all the cues during that rehearsal week, and I was able to play that for the cast, which was really helpful.

The film got into Sundance, and a bidding war erupted after its world premiere screening on Jan. 19, 2024. Can you set the scene for the readers en route to Netflix’s $17 million winning bid?

So we got into Sundance two months early, and I was shocked when I got the call because the movie wasn’t even done yet. I truly didn’t even think that we would get in. It just seemed like such a pipe dream after sending off [an early cut] on their website. So, going into Sundance, our sales agent, Ben Kramer at CAA, who our producers hired, was like, “You’ve probably heard the stories about movies selling on the same night [as their premieres]. But these days, movies don’t sell that quickly. Part of it’s Covid, part of it’s how streaming has changed the industry. But, basically, if it doesn’t sell in one night, don’t worry. Talk to Me sold in three days, and that was considered lightning fast.” So he set that expectation, and I was like, “Okay, I guess I’ll just hang out and watch movies.” But then we were very fortunate to get our first offer 24 hours after our screening, which was just insane. We made this movie for $2.5 million, and going into Sundance, I was like, “I just hope someone buys it for $2.5 million, so I can say, as a director, that I made a movie that did not lose money.”

Once the offers started coming in, myself and our producers went around to different studios’ Airbnbs to take meetings. In some cases, they came to our producers’ Airbnbs, and then our sales agent did his Succession thing, which was, essentially, to pit the bidders against one another and drive the price up. That whole day, I was mainly just sitting around and watching him do his thing. The meetings probably only took up 20 percent of the day, and then everything else was me just watching him work. It was very eye-opening for someone like me who’s very new to the actual business aspect of this industry. 

The deal then closed the day after, so our bidding war ended three days after our actual premiere. We had one day where it went until 12:30 AM, but then we had to stop because people had to talk to people in the L.A. offices of their studios. So it picked up the next morning, and then Netflix ended up winning it midday on day three.

Richard Linklater’s Hit Man sold to Netflix for $20 million, but they had a $10 million offer from Neon for U.S. rights, plus all the costs associated with a wide theatrical release. Did you have a similar decision to make?

Yeah, there were a lot of different types of offers: theatrical, streaming, et cetera. So a lot of stuff went into the decision, and at the end of the day, I was very, very fortunate. I was stoked that we even had one offer. So the fact that we had multiple people bidding was something that I still haven’t wrapped my head around fully. But, ultimately, Netflix won, and they’ve been a great partner thus far.

You had 17 million reasons to go with Netflix, but did loyalty factor into it at all since you’ve done a lot of promo work for them over the years? 

I’ve certainly had a great relationship with them, and they’ve basically kept me bankrolled for the past eight years prior to making the movie. So my experience with them on the marketing end has been wonderful. They’ve let me direct these insane things, and frankly, I’m not sure why they’re paying for these bespoke promos to be made. We shot this Cowboy Bebop promo, and the budget of the promo alone was like $800 grand. It was insane. I shot it in New Zealand for two months, which was wonderful. So I’ve had a great experience working with him on the marketing end, but loyalty-wise, it was a totally different set of people who bought the film. It was the acquisitions department. Now, if the marketing people that I’d worked with came to me about the film, then I would’ve been like, “Oh, man, it’s inhumane to not be somewhat biased.” But, as much as I love Netflix, I wouldn’t say that loyalty factored too much into the actual sale.

This town loves to make reductive comparisons. I’m also guilty of it, as I’ve been describing your movie as Bodies Bodies Bodies meets Talk to Me. I assume others have too. Do these comps drive you a little nuts since you first started imagining this movie long before these other movies even existed?

(Laughs.) Great question, and yes, but I understand them. Bodies Bodies Bodies came out right as we were prepping, and Talk to Me came out after we had shot, but I get the comparisons. They’re all young people, more or less, playing a game in a house, and things get out of control. So it makes total sense. I also can’t deny that there’s a comparison to Freaky Friday, which is the mother of all body swap films. Now, if someone says that we ripped off one of these movies, then it’s a little shortsighted just because we were already going by the time those films came out. 

But I make reductive comparisons myself. I pitched this initially as Freaky Friday meets The Big Chill by way of Black Mirror. So Bodies Bodies Bodies, Talk to Me or anything else that gets thrown in there is just because of the inherent similarities. Hopefully, people will think that all three of these movies are different and have their own space, but you can’t really do anything about what someone thinks at the end of the day. There are much worse films to be compared to than Bodies Bodies Bodies and Talk to Me, which are both great.

The ending of the film paves the way for a sequel, but not in a shameless sequel bait–type way. If Netflix asked you to pitch a sequel tomorrow, could you do it? 

People have asked that question so much since Sundance, and initially, I was so shocked just to hear their interest because it took so long to get this one made. That said, have I thought about what a sequel could be? Yes. Will we definitely do a sequel? No BS — I don’t know. But I have thought about ideas.

Your shorts Fiber Optics and Floating, as well as It’s What Inside, each have a common thread. They all involve characters who are willing to sacrifice a piece of themselves to get what they think they’ve always wanted. Are you consciously exploring that theme? 

Well, first of all, thanks for doing your research on those. I’ve never thought about it, consciously, but yeah, that’s for sure there. All three of those things are essentially about trying to change yourself to get love or to feel desire. Wow, man, I’ve got to talk to my therapist about this. There’s something there.

Lastly, if you were to extend the title, I presume it would be It’s What’s Inside That Counts the Most. Is the film actually making the timeless point that our inner character and inherent nature outweighs a shiny exterior? 

​​I think it’s questioning the disparity between the way we present — which is exacerbated by social media — and the way we actually are. So just taking the extreme of someone who’s very popular online, that is obviously a very of-the-moment thing. Juxtaposing that person with someone who doesn’t feel desired in their relationship and wishes that they were popular online just seemed like a good way to examine that chasm.

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It’s What’s Inside is now streaming on Netflix.