‘Trust’ Producer-Director Danny Boyle: “John Paul Getty Would Entirely Approve” Of Amazon’s “Hunger Games” HQ2 Race
Danny Boyle, executive producer and director of John Paul Getty drama Trust, says the oil magnate wo..
Danny Boyle, executive producer and director of John Paul Getty drama Trust, says the oil magnate would “entirely approve” of the “Hunger Games-like competition” Amazon is holding for “HQ2,” its second U.S. headquarters.
The Slumdog Millionaire filmmaker appeared at a luncheon spotlighting the 10-episode series, which premieres March 25. Also on hand were creator-exec producer-writer Simon Beaufoy and stars Donald Sutherland, Brendan Fraser, Harris Dickinson and Michael Esper.
During the audience Q&A that followed a short discussion moderated by Elvis Mitchell at the Lotos Club just off Central Park, Boyle was asked what “the 1%” should take away from the series. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Boyle responded, is making competitors out of “impoverished cities in America, to give him tax breaks. Woever gives the biggest tax break, he’ll maybe give the new headquarters to.”
Getty, whose values and dysfunctional family are the focus of Trust, “would entirely approve of that behavior because it makes the system not responsible to any of the people who feed it — or who buy from it, really. They’re above government,” Boyle said, according to a recording of the session. “They must follow the pure rules of capitalism.”
In the second episode of the series, Getty, who is played by Donald Sutherland, gives a speech articulating the upside of oil as exploited by the capitalist system. “If you “swapped out the word ‘data’ for ‘oil,’ the scene is absolutely applicable now,” Boyle said.
FX will hold another screening of the first two episodes of the show this evening before its annual upfront-season bowling party, where network talent and executives mingle with ad buyers and the media.
