Meet The Pro Athletes Turned Producers Making A Big Play In Hollywood

“We won’t stop,” affirmed NBA All-Star Blake Griffin, one half of the Los Angeles-based production company Mortal Media. Together with fellow pro athlete Ryan Kalil, 2023 has seen the company defy skeptics and critics as it emerges as a star player in its own right in the film and TV industry with a multi-year overall deal with Sony Pictures and investment in a state-of-the-art animation studio.

Griffin is the first to admit that the journey from the company’s creation in 2016 to where it is now hasn’t been a walk in the park.

“I don’t think giving up has ever really crossed our minds. You go into everything with a sense of optimism, but when something doesn’t work, especially in sports, there’s zero time to feel sorry for yourself; it’s like, ‘Oh, it didn’t work out. Alright. Next.’ That has been our approach to everything.”

Kalil added, “Blake and I have been at this for some time now, but early on, when we were holistically talking about the kind of production company we wanted to build, we always knew there was going to be a stigma that we were fighting. We knew we would be seen as outsiders until we weren’t, so early on, we put our heads down; we were sponges and found mentors and people that inspired us and that we looked up to.”

One thing the pair worked on was finding their “North Star,” but they knew they would feel like “rookies” for as long as necessary.

“That took years of us taking our time, meeting with many different people within the industry, from creatives to longtime executives, figuring out where our passions and strengths lie and where we could make the most noise,” Kalil continued. “We always heard and knew it would be hard work, but the advice is always different, depending on who you’re talking to and how long they’ve been in the business. The older they are, the more they’re like, ‘You don’t want to do this.’ You could find that in any industry, but it’s definitely true of this one. I don’t think you realize how hard it really is until you get into it.”

The former NFL center, who was co-executive producer with Griffin on Mortal’s first feature earlier this year, Hulu’s White Men Can’t Jump, admits the production world is new to them; however, some elements feel familiar.

“A lot of our family and friends that have been around us for a long time have seen how much work goes into getting ready for professional sports,” Kalil mused. “They only remember the games, they only remember the flashy thing just like you do watching a show or a movie, so I know for me, and Blake and I joke about this, I have a newfound respect for how I absorb movies or television shows because I know how much work goes into it, whether they’re good, bad or indifferent.”

“I’m a little bit more hesitant to go, ‘Meh!’ when watching something because I can feel a lot of the pains it took to cast, make and produce the ideation to completion. It’s a rough path.”

“However, we can get caught up in something that gets pitched or brought to us, and we’re given all the superficial reasons why this is a no-brainer,” he continued. “We’ll be six months into it and be like, ‘Why did we get into this? We don’t like this.’ Then you have to stop and say objectively, ‘Would I watch this if I wasn’t part of it?’ and there have been times early on where we’re like, ‘No, I would never watch this.’ We already know how hard it is to make something when you love it.”

The pair have a plethora of people championing them in Hollywood, including another duo, the creative partners behind hits including Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street and its sequel, as well as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse.

“Phil Lord and Chris Miller are big influences on us, and they’re in that small group of people that have been so supportive and incredibly generous with their time and knowledge,” Kalil explained. “We drink their Kool-Aid of making new things, and we’ve been heavy on that path.”

Griffin and Kalil’s decision to invest in the pioneering Louisiana-based animation outfit Swaybox Studios is one major step along that chosen route. The company made headlines in 2022 with its NFL Super Bowl LVI commercial directed by Friday Night Lights filmmaker Peter Berg.

“The first time Ryan met with the Swaybox team, he sent me like a couple of reels and teasers that they had done, and I was blown away,” Griffin recalled. “We had dinner with them, and from a company perspective alone, even if I wasn’t interested in film or TV, I think the idea and what they’re doing is a smart investment. Ryan and I have done tons of stuff over the years investment-wise far away from entertainment, and at the end of the day, a smart investment is a smart investment.”

Griffin and Kalil already have an untitled live-action/animation hybrid project in development with Swaybox Studios, whose proprietary tech uses a mix of CGI animation, stop motion, and live-action real-time performance.

“For us, it’s a case of putting our money where our mouth is and investing in something cool that we think could probably change the landscape of how things are done in film and TV,” Griffin continued. “All those things combined were a reason why we wanted to invest but were very excited for people to see this technology and what it can do, not only because of the time and money it saves but how it blends different worlds.”

Something the Mortal Media leadership is keen to lean into is forming production partnerships out of Hollywood itself, with Swaybox being a prime example.

“When I got to go down to New Orleans and see the studio and meet all the craftspeople and artists involved, we quickly realized that you can’t replace those people. It’s not something that you can replicate,” Kalil enthused. “To me, it’s as much about the people we invested in and their talent. The technology is impressive, but the way they’re doing it, the secret sauce they put on it with the artists and people in their small, scrappy group, made us feel very fortunate.”

“We went to work to try to convince them that we would be great shepherds for them, not only helping give them resources but also helping build out a slate.’

He added that Swaybox is already working on a feature film project with The Batman director Matt Reeves and Warner Bros. While they couldn’t talk about specifics, Kalil described the script and early tests as “so impressive that it’s undeniable they’re a talented bunch.”

“We have a ton of projects that we’ve been trying to figure out how to make. With the combination of Swaybox Studios and the early scripts on the animated side that we’ve been getting early traction on, studios are very excited,” he added.

In February 2023, Mortal Media signed a multi-year first-look film and TV development and production with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Covering scripted and non-scripted, the latter will lean into sports-related IPs, something they’ve been keen to try and swerve up in their gameplay until now.

“We haven’t mentioned this before, but one of the hardest things early on when we first started this was that everyone started bringing us all things sports, and while we’re not opposed to it, we were trying to remain disciplined,” Kalil recalled. “Unless it was undeniable, we didn’t want to get involved. We felt like there was a path where we would be pigeonholed into only being the athletes doing sports-related content. We did White Men Can’t Jump, and that checked the boxes of getting to work with Kenya Barris, and it is a property that was just near and dear to our hearts. However, there have been a lot of things we’ve been accumulating over the years that we’ve put off that now, being signed with Sony and given the circumstances of the town right now, we’ve poured our energy and excitement into realizing those unscripted sports projects we’ve been holding off getting involved with.”

“It was a nice moment for the studio to say they like the stuff we’ve been able to produce thus far early in our careers, they like the slate that we’re working on and that they’d love to do some of that with us.”

Griffin added, “We’re very excited about starting this partnership, but the strike has slightly killed our momentum. However, we’ve tried to do everything we can to show them we’re going to grind every moment of this relationship, and they’ve been unbelievable, even from the resource perspective. Having that Sony stamp where you enter a room with the name attached definitely helps us.”

“Our whole goal, especially when this strike stops, is to hit the ground and show them that they haven’t wasted a moment or a dime on us because we’re going to hustle for them as much as we can.”

While the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have somewhat slowed the pair’s roll, they are doing what they can to turn it into an opportunity, and their goals remain unchanged.

“The situation has changed our plans,” Griffin admitted. “What we’ve talked about early on since I’ve been back and figuring stuff out during the strike, we’re saying, ‘Let’s get our ducks in a row so that once this is over, we’re ready to go out with stuff and keep moving forward.’ The floodgates are going to open, and then everybody will try to be first to pitch because execs haven’t seen anything in forever, but also taking a different look at how we approach pitching different projects.”

“Ryan had a great idea about how we go about things even before we go out and pitch, different ways of creating our own IPs, which will allow us to control that process a little bit more.”

Once again, the duo’s experience in the sports world has proved invaluable in a time of uncertainty in the entertainment industry.

“The biggest thing we have been able to carry across is resiliency because there’s a lot of rejection, a lot of empty promises, a lot of dangling the carrot in front of you, keeping you along just enough, and feeling like it’s never going to go,” Kalil explained. “We’ve been around many players who had a lot of promise, but they just couldn’t stay steady. When it’s great, it’s easy to be excited, and when it’s not so great, it’s easy to get down on yourself, have doubts, and want to throw in the towel.”

Griffin concluded, “I don’t know what we expected 2023 to look like just because the first six or seven years that we’ve been doing this, we have gone with the flow, and if something goes, it goes. We have tons of projects that we’ve been super excited about, and we still haven’t done anything with them but hopefully, one day. We’re trying to get everything to go but taking everything as it comes.”