Larry Kasanoff, legendary movie producer

 Welcome back, friends, to our podcast, Unlocking Your World of Creativity, where we're traveling around the world talking to creative practitioners about how they get inspired and how they organize ideas. And most of all, how we gain the confidence and the connections to get our work out into the world.

And that's what's key. We're going to learn a lot today from our guest, the legendary movie producer, Larry Kasanoff, who's also the chief executive officer of the Threshold Entertainment Group. Larry, welcome to the show. Thanks, Mark. I'm glad to be here. It's going to be a fun conversation. Listeners, if you don't know Larry as a household name, you've certainly seen him and his company on the credits of some of your favorite movies, ranging from Platoon and Terminator 2 and Mortal Kombat to True Lies, Dirty Dancing, even the Lego Star Wars movie.

It's quite a range, Larry. How is your creative fingerprint different. And some of these projects, whether they're, drama and war movies, all the way to lighter and comedy and animation.

I've been both a producer and a studio head and the jobs are very similar, but a little bit different as a studio head, you tend to be.

Working on more projects at once and a little further removed from the day to day in some cases. And as a producer it's you're more in the trenches. But in reality, I think the job is to be the strength wherever there's a weakness. You gotta do whatever there is, whatever it takes. When we were doing Platoon, I was very new to the business and I was the studio.

And the guy who was the producer said, you know what I do? I make sure everyone has a good lunch in the jungle because they shot in the Philippines. Whatever it takes. That to make to get your vision of that movie in my mind, I always see the movie and whatever I can do to help get that vision, whether it's making lunch or doing something much more involved.

That's what I do.

Yes. In your new book, Larry, a touch of the madness just released from Ben Bella books. It's a fantastic collection of stories of some of these adventures that you've had and creative rollercoaster ride. Maybe you can even touch upon the origin of the title of that book. And I, which by the way, also.

I love the subhead, how to be more innovative and work and life by being a little

crazy. Exactly. I espouse madness, but here's how it started. So I wanted to be a movie producer since I was a little kid and I got very lucky out of grad school and I got a job as head of production and acquisitions for a emerging independent video company called Vestron.

And in those days, the mid eighties, Vestron was riding on the boom of home video and home video then was much like streaming now, all of a sudden they were video stores where there hadn't been before. And they had room for eight or 10, 000 movies. They didn't have any and they needed products. So companies like Vestron sprung up to supply them much as what happened with streaming.

So my job out of school was to deliver 80 movies a year to the company, eight zero, make them, buy them, co produce them. We don't care if you don't lose money, you're in big trouble. And so mostly we made, rom coms and action, high concept action movies with sort of B level stars in them and horror movies and things like that.

And then I got a script. For Platoon, and Platoon was a very different movie. It was not a high concept rom com. It was about the Vietnam War, and it had a very interesting perspective of the Vietnam War from the point of view of the impact it psychologically had on the kids who were in it. And my boss said, this isn't the kind of movie we make.

The people who were in it became stars, but they weren't stars. The director, we had financed one of his prior movies, which I thought was great, but it didn't do a lot of business. This just was not what we were doing. But I said, it's just something great about it. I want to do it. And my boss to his great credit said, look, you're the head of production.

So it's your call. If you want to do it, go ahead. But there's always a, but if it fails. You're fired. Choose. And so I thought I didn't get into the movie business to play it safe. So I greenlit Platoon. When the movie, when I saw the movie, when they showed it to me, it was actually one morning early at a film festival in Italy.

I'm the only guy to giggle his way through the first screening of Platoon. Not because it was bad. The opposite. It was so good. I was like, Oh my God, I'm not getting fired. I'm going to be okay. And in fact, it was so good it won best picture that year, the Academy Awards. So I ran into the director Oliver a few months later at a bar one night in New York, and he bought me a drink and he said, kid, I always liked you.

You have a touch of the madness. And I thought, a touch of the madness? Is he calling me crazy? Am I a little bit crazy? And then I thought my boss was crazy to let a 25 year old kid run an 80 picture film slate. Oliver had a touch of the madness by insisting on doing a Vietnam movie in a way no one ever had.

And I had a touch of the madness by betting the camera. Best job you could imagine out of school on it. And the way to creativity, the way to do all these things is to embrace that touch of the madness. So that became my touchstone for the rest of my career and still is. And it's important, everyone talks about your show about creativity and innovation.

Why is this important? Because in business and in life, if you want to excel, You have to swim against the current of the river of life, which will always pull you towards the middle. And the best tool you have to swim against it is creativity and innovation. And the best way you have to foster your creativity innovation is to give into your touch of the madness.

In other words that, that little. Voice in the back of your mind saying, can I do this? No, I don't know. My parents, my spouse, my kids, they won't hate me. I can't do it. It's too crazy. That's the one. And I wrote the book because I noticed in the last few years, not just in my business, but in every business, people are much more trepidatious about being their true unfettered, uninhibited, creative selves.

And I have one purpose in writing this book and doing podcasts like this, which is to try to encourage people to be their most innovative selves.

It is very encouraging. And, you talked about bringing the vision of the idea to life and, I do did want to focus a little bit on the essence of this idea, and we see these famous scenes in movies and TV shows all the time where we're pitching the idea to the producers or to the studio.

But how do you communicate the essence of the idea in order to do that? To produce the vision.

I think so. That comes from I, it says, okay, I have just easy. Have a touch of the madness and be creative. How do you do it? There's three aspects. I like cap. I can't create as play and under create. The first thing you have to do when you have your idea is understand you the essence of your idea.

What are you really doing here? So if you're marketing Coca Cola, what are you really selling? It's not sugared water. It's, you're selling a feeling or emotion or whatever, however they sell. And so in a movie, in my example, I think you have to understand the essence of your idea. So when I started Mortal Kombat, no one had ever made a hit movie from a video game and everyone told me I was crazy, common theme, and I was going to lose my career.

But I never thought I was making a movie from a video game. I thought I was making a movie from the story, the essence that video game was based on. And that essence in my mind is empowerment. And here's why. The Mortal Kombat started as a hit arcade game. In those days, they were places you went to if people don't know what an arcade is.

Anyway,

so I'm walking around thinking, do I blow up my life and trial this and take a risk? And I'm wandering around an arcade in LA and a little, an 11 year old kid slaps a quarter down on the machine. And he looks up at me and he says, I challenge you to Mortal Kombat. And then the kid beat the hell out of me.

He just totally decimated me. And if Mortal Kombat, when you win, it makes you feel very good. Sub Zero wins, you lose. The kid felt so empowered that he could control and beat in this game as an adult, he skipped away. And I thought, that's it, I'm doing it. So the essence of moral combat to me, the essence is empowerment.

And it's important that whatever idea you have with your opening an ice cream store or coffee shop, is the essence of a coffee shop, coffee? Or is it a place to go and gather and be around people or whatever? You have to understand the essence of your idea. Very good.

And I love this A in cap, ask, and you've got a great chapter in the book where even you know I believe it was two of the first investors got arrested.

The third finally invested. You got to keep asking. I guess this is the message.

Keep asking. Anybody, anything, always, constantly, for whatever you want, no matter who they are, anywhere in the world, call them up. So I would ask your listeners this question. If you could call anybody right now who's alive in the world, in real life, and ask them a question, who would you call and what would you ask?

So strong. Most people. Most people say, wow, that's a good question. And they don't know. And the reason they don't know is because it doesn't occur to them that they can do it, but I'm telling you, you can do it. Just try it. This is the best way to get into a touch of the madness to get into the world of it.

If costs, maybe, we're trying to get the Pope to do something on a movie, the Pope in Italy. We get these lovely pass letters, but we still try. So maybe you don't have to start with a Pope. Maybe you could start smaller, but. But call, maybe it's your brother in law you always wanted to ask a question to, or maybe it's the nice lady down at the library.

Just call. Call anybody. And now it's so easy. When I started doing this in college, you actually had to call people. Now you can text them, you can DM them, you can, there's so many ways to get to someone. Try it.

Do these other channels help with the fearlessness or, overcoming the trepidation, like there are a hundred ways to reach somebody?

Yeah, I do, because I think it's easier. And I think once you get into it, and let's say you text someone and they don't answer you, okay, the sky didn't fall in. And let's say you do it again and they don't answer you. And the third time someone answers you and you're like, Hey, wow. Yeah. So it's like a muscle.

It's if you haven't ever lifted weights, when you go to the gym, you don't start with 200 pounds. You start with 10. Yeah, so it does because it gets you into it. And then it becomes fun because then you realize and that's one of the ways I know if I don't mind calling anybody for one of my projects, I love that project.

And I better be ready to call. A movie can take one year or 10 years to get made. So you better talking about it. And that's one of the ways I know I like talking about if I say I'm going to call this guy and I can't wait to tell him about it, then it's fun. And then I know I try, but yeah, it does help and you just got to jump in.

You can't think about it. Everyone's so worried about being judged. So what? What's going to happen? There

is a what's the worst thing that could happen moment, isn't there? What's the worst thing?

Exactly. So someone doesn't mostly

and Larry, it's great that some of these wins. Always make great books.

But certainly every project you've ever worked on didn't work, perfectly wasn't adopted at the first handshake. What were some of the obstacles, especially on some of these that maybe were a little harder? I'll say failed, but maybe didn't reach their full potential. How did you process those now and come back on the other side?

Yeah, that's a really good point. Because in these, podcasts, you can go every movie work. It's been great,

dirty dancing. And then, and then we walked up and got the Oscar for some other movie. And then, it all sounds great.

That's like saying football game. It's easy. So I got hit by 700, I'm fine.

So I think you have to play like a game. You have to think to yourself, what if I'm an NFL quarterback? And okay, we, we lost last Sunday. Maybe we lost because the ref had a bad call or because our defense was down or because they were so good or because someone got a cold, doesn't matter. What can you learn?

If you can learn anything, take the lesson and the next Sunday is a new game and it's a new world and you just got to go for it. The other thing you have to do to keep the sports analogies is imagine you're a pro boxer and you win all the time. You still get hit 50 times in each round, even though you're winning.

You still got to get used to the fact that even though you're winning, you take those and they don't all win, but you just got to realize that's part of the game. No one bats a thousand in baseball. If you bat over 300, that means you miss seven out of 10. You're a superstar. So you have to think like that.

You just have to say, and if you can learn something, learn it. And sometimes, I have a little trouble letting go. I'm very tenacious. So sometimes I probably should let go a little sooner than I should because they don't all win. And sometimes it's misleading in these books and conversations for the audience to assume sure, all your stuff worked, but that's not true at all.

Yes. And by the way, it's not like people say to me, Oh, you've had some great movies. Sure. We'll do whatever you want. I wish

it doesn't come that easy. Huh? I think about the advice to, stay in your lane, stay focused, stay in your hedgehog, you know what you're good at, but you've taken forays into, technology and video games and even music.

You've got a wall full of gold and platinum records. How do you find that you translate the essence of your creativity into some of these other creative channels?

That's what I think is interesting about what I, what we do now, because in the entertainment business, it's no longer just a movie. In other words, the pie is getting bigger, but the slices are getting smaller.

So if you take Mortal Kombat, it's a movie and video games and animation and live tours and music and TV series and on. And that's very interesting. And so it's always the same essence. It's just a little different as to how you translate it based on the medium. And that I find a very challenging, challenging thing, but it's always keeping clear that, that vision of that essence and where you're sailing to.

And I think it's very important and fun that you have all these other options for translating things, because when you said a second earlier, you're always told to stay in your lane. Why? Don't stay in your lane. Drive into the other guy's lane. What is your, that little voice telling you and you're scared to do it?

Do it. Nothing great happens without taking a chance. On this book, we made a music video for the book. If you Google a Touch of the Madness music video, you can find it. Why? Because we thought it'd be fun, and it's working well now, and no one, as we could find, ever made a music video for a book.

So we thought, what the hell? Let's try. And so you just gotta take, you gotta keep taking shots.

Love that. I couldn't help but take on the challenge, Larry, of who would I call. I've given some thought to that and I'll put that in the show notes later, but I'm curious as far as, what's your next play?

Where are you reaching out beyond just what we're talking about here? Where's your stretch to go to the next creative level?

I Just wrote my first book. Yes. I actually have a book of photography coming, which you haven't announced that coming out in the spring. So I have a second book and call it a Malibu blonde, which all the proceeds go to that book.

All the proceeds go to charity. We're, um, involved in a lot of projects now, one, especially it's going to sound a little cagey, but I can't talk about it because we don't announce it, but it's. It's just a really wild project. It takes place all over the world and the premise of the project is also something that translates into real life.

People start thinking I'm crazy on that one, but then eventually I'm convincing them because it's really fascinating. We, I keep trying, I keep thinking to myself when am I going to get to the point where maybe I don't take so many risks, but I take tons of risks every day. I still do it.

I'm not a kid anymore, but I still do it and I still can't resist.

I love that. One project that I did read about in a post recently was an animated feature film, X Factor in the Jungle, in collaboration with Simon Cowell. That's going to be a fascinating one.

So that's an animated movie where jungle animals find a discarded karaoke machine and use it to start their own version of the X Factor, where for the first time, jungle disputes will be solved not by violence, but by music.

And it's a big, huge, fun blast of the movie. Yes, we're doing a partnership with Simon, who's been great. Kirk Wise, who directed Beauty and the Beast, is directing it. And we're starting it. So it's a big, huge, fun karaoke party movie, X Factor in the Jungle. I love

that. And just putting a pause button and underscoring the essence of the idea.

In one sentence, you gave it to us. Yeah, the problems of the confrontations of the jungle are solved with the same singing and not that, And

it's like you are that's supposed to make you smile. That's it. Fun, in my opinion, is wildly underrated these days. One of the things I think you have to do in your work life and your personal life is play all these things like a game.

When was the last time you took your staff out for ice cream or bowling or? The going to the zoo. It's, you gotta play it and have fun. It's not enough fun. So a lot of the movies and things we're pursuing, and hopefully even this book are fun. We want people to have fun. I think the world needs more fun.

And I think it's really important and really undervalued. So the X factor in the jungle, I gave you the idea, but it's also really fun. That's

fantastic. And what about some of the other aspects of creativity that you touched on, including like mindfulness? I think the idea of staying focused, but also Hey, while you're having this raucous fun, there is a moment to quiet the mind a little bit and let that creativity soak in.

What's been your experience with that?

So a long time ago, I read a book by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, who introduced mindfulness to the West, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, and I love the book. And I thought, wow, what can I got to meet this guy again, call people. And I thought, hey, maybe I can just peaceful Buddhist monk.

Maybe he can be inspiration for. Her character in Mortal Kombat, which is already incongruous because Mortal Kombat is not peaceful. And I went to meet him. And after two hours, I felt like I'd been on vacation. So I said, what's your secret? And he said, no secret practice. And I said, practice, you mean I could learn to be like this?

I have a lot of energy. And I became friends with him and some of the nuns that his monks and nuns. And I, and no, he did not obviously wind up being involved in moral combat, but I wound up making a documentary called mindfulness be happy now, which is on Amazon, which is based on his thoughts and mindfulness.

It has people like Deepak Chopra in it and it's wonderful. And it became a lifelong practice. And yes, what I realized is if you're simply in the present moment, You will be more creative because of the amount of your brain that is taken up when you're not in the present moment. Oh, I got to call my accountant next.

What about this? I didn't shovel the walk this morning. That's not helping your creativity. So mindfulness allows you to simply be more creative. And it's, and again, it's fun. If you're working on a project with someone, I write a lot of our scripts with a partner. If I'm, if I, and when I, when we do that, it's all I focus on.

But if I were doing that and texting people and doing other things at the same time, I'm not going to be so focused on the writing mindfulness. I believe it's just a great tool. And it's, and in one sense, it's, it's easy, but it's not simple. I'm sorry. It's simple, but it's not easy because you have to remember to do it.

You just take a few deep breaths. Every day you're already in the way to mindfulness.

Yes. Yes. I saw that film and take that on has been a great influence in my life. And I'm glad we touched on this because that influence of quieting the mind, we think about the play and the rattle of ideas and the influences and noise in the world, but it does take a little practice.

It's interesting. His his incongruous titles, the art of power, for example. The book has nothing to do with that kind of power, just like it wouldn't have much to do with Mortal Kombat. But it is an art, and it's in the practice, not just the reading, yeah?

In all seriousness, I once, Ty, we call him Ty, and a lot of his moments came to Hollywood and I introduced him to about 50 studio heads and people like that, the hope being that maybe they could infuse some mindfulness into their work.

I try and put more mindfulness into my movies now. So it does seep in, in ways that maybe you don't understand, even if you look at Mortal Kombat, and not that Ty is talking about fighting, but the best way to win a fight is to stay calm.

Yeah, good influence. I'm glad you made those introductions.

Maybe it does have some ripple effects out into the business and the world. Yeah, we would use more mindfulness and peace right now.

We could use and ties a great expression, peace in yourself, peace in the world. So if you listen to all the things going on in the world, you think, Oh, what can I do? I'm powerless against.

Ukraine, Israel, whatever. You're not according to Tai. Just find peace in yourself. And if you find peace in yourself, you're going to be nicer to the coffee barista and the coffee barista will be nicer to his partner and on. And you can do something. So the more you hear about all this stuff, just look for peace in yourself.

That's what Tai would say. And I think that's a great philosophy.

Fantastic. I think that's a great punctuation point on our conversation, Larry. Ken, thank you enough for coming on the show.

My pleasure. I had a good time. I hope you enjoyed it. And listeners,

I think if we say we're going to embrace madness for fearless creativity, I love the fact that we've touched on the you can do it, why not?

Pick up the phone, make the call. Send the email, hit the send button, all those things that we're reticent to do. And Larry's really encourages that the work is good enough. The ideas have been developed. Now let's get them out in the world. And that's what our podcast is all about. So thanks again to Larry Kasanoff for being my guest.

His new book is a touch of the madness. Just released from Ben Bella Books and available wherever you get your books. Listeners, come back again next time. We're going to continue our around the world journeys. We stopped off in L. A., Hollywood, Southern California. Today, we're going to be going to Abington, U.

K., Warsaw, Poland. We'll be talking with brand leaders in software engineering and even Reddit. So subscribe now and follow our podcast as we go. And thanks again to Larry Kasanoff. So for now, I'm Mark Stinson, and we'll be unlocking your world. Of creativity. Bye for now.