Producers Tim and Trevor White on ‘Eternity’, Anthony Bourdain Biopic

It sounds kind of like a Mad Libs or the start of a very specific joke. Tim and Trevor White, the producers behind films like King Richard, were getting a tour of the West Wing of the White House as part of their prep for the 2016 biopic LBJ. Along with Rob Reiner and Woody Harrelson — the film’s respective director and star — their tour guide was an Obama-era aide who surprised the producers by asking whether he could send them a screenplay he had written. Nearly a decade later, the Whites and that presidential speechwriter-cum-screenwriter, Patrick Cunnane, are heading to TIFF with the A24 feature Eternity.

The movie stars Elizabeth Olsen as a recently deceased woman who has to choose whom to spend the afterlife with, her first husband (Callum Turner) or second (Miles Teller). The Whites’ Star Thrower Entertainment banner, with credits including the Sundance standout Fair Play, also will be at the festival with the sales title Carolina Caroline — a romantic crime thriller that sees Samara Weaving as a woman in search of her estranged mother who joins up with an on-the-run con man — and are in post for a biopic of Anthony Bourdain.

Ahead of the festival, the Whites talked to THR about the origins of Eternity, the sweet spot for the budget of specialty films and their approach to biopics.

How did Eternity come together?

TREVOR WHITE We had just finished a different script with the writer, Pat Cunnane, and we said, “What are we going to do next?” He says I’ve had this idea for years: What if there’s a woman who shows up in the afterlife and has to choose between her first husband, who died in the war young, or her second husband, whom she spent a life with. I remember Tim and I were both silent. You just instantly knew that there was a movie to build off of that. We spent a good year with a whiteboard, with Pat cracking what that story could be and how it worked.

TIM WHITE As an aside, we met Pat on another film we were working on in 2015 called LBJ. Rob Reiner was directing, Woody Harrelson was starring as LBJ and Pat was one of Barack Obama’s speechwriters. Rob, Trevor, myself and Woody took a tour of the West Wing, and right outside of the Oval Office, Pat asked us, “Hey, I would love to send you guys the script. When I get out of here, I want to be a writer.” That’s how we met him. He was giving us a West Wing tour and was obviously very nervous to broach the subject but eventually did.

There are always questions in Hollywood along the lines of: “Where are the movies for the adults?” But looking at your slate, you are very focused on adult dramas.

TIM It’s hard to make films — if you’re really going to be a hands producer — that you yourself are not fans of. The movies that Trevor and I love are films like King Richard. We talk about Moneyball all the time. I think Moneyball is a comp in one way or another for almost everything we develop. It’s definitely, probably tougher in the industry, but we always feel like everything that’s really good finds a path. We do also love romantic comedies too, but I think to your point, even the romantic comedies we want to do are probably more  skewed to those Nora Ephron and Jim Brooks, 90s, adult-driven romantic comedies.

TREVOR Early on, as we were building the company, there was this question: “Could this get made today?” Then there became this shift where we didn’t not talk about could this get made but do we want to make this. There’s a lot of scripts we read where we go that will get made but we don’t think we’re the people for it.

TIM It’s also important to be conscious of the budget with these movies. There’s an ability to get a lot of things made, if you can package it with the right cast and if you develop it well.

What is the sweet spot right now for the specialty films?

TREVOR I feel like there’s a sweet spot that we’re seeing that lives in that $8 to $20 [million] range. That’s where most things seem to settle.

Where are you finding your filmmakers?

TREVOR We finished two films this summer. We love them both, but we did this little movie called Atonement with a first-time director named Reid Van Dyke. He’s been Oscar-nominated for his short film, and he’s just one of these people that, since we got to know him as a filmmaker, we’re just always floored by what he creates.

TIM Trevor went to college with him, and I visited Trevor when I was a senior and he was a sophomore, and he was talking about this kid then.

TREVOR He goes on to get nominated for an Oscar the same year that The Post did, so we got to go to the Oscars and we sat in the same row together. And I told him, this whole time, when you have your first feature, we want to be the ones to make it.

What are you hearing that buyers want right now?

TIM It’s different for different places, but everyone still wants the branded, IP tentpole stuff. And it seems like everyone wants something smart, elevated and cast-driven — a Weapons type of thing.

TREVOR Definitely cast-driven.

You do a lot of biopics. How do you go about tackling those real-life stories?

TIM We really look for a window — what is the time frame that captures who this person is. We’re less interested in doing a cradle-to-grave biopic. In The Post, for example, Katharine Graham’s story is one a lot of people wanted to develop for years, but there were so many different ways you could go with it. Liz Hanna, who wrote the script, had the genius idea to do it all in a three-week time frame where she was taking the paper public but at the same time forced to make the decision about publishing [the Pentagon Papers]. The Queen is the example we always reference. It’s 11, 12, 13 days in Queen Elizabeth’s life, dealing with the death of Princess Diana. You come out of that movie feeling like you really know the queen. For King Richard, we had the idea for Richard Williams as a character for years, but it was when we met with [screenwriter] Zach Baylin that he cracked the story of focusing on ’91 to ‘94 and had an exact reason why it should be there. Tony is really one summer in 1976 in Bourdain’s life when he’s in his early 20s. It’s a coming-of-age story

This interview has been edited and condensed.