Huffington Magazine Issue 1 | Page 83

HUFFINGTON 06.17.12 LION & WHEEL, LLC FEATURE_TITLE million in the U.S. and another $13 million abroad. But other studios had taken note as well, and the June 2011 release of Beginners was overshadowed by two surprise hits, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris and Terence Malick’s Tree of Life. So Beginners earned just $5.8 million at home. “Midnight in Paris just blew us away,” Knudsen says. Still, it was immediately evident that Plummer would be the man to beat at the Oscars. According to the oldschool producers’ handbook, Knudsen and Van Hoy should have summoned thunderbolts from the sky when Plummer left their names out of his acceptance speeches. But instead, they took it in stride. “The only reason I felt it was because we knew our parents were watching the Academy Awards, and all they gave a shit about was whether he was going to say our name,” says Van Hoy. “What I learned was not to take that stuff so seriously.” And though Plummer may not have thanked them by Director Braden King (right), producer Lars Knudsen (center) and 1st AD Chris Carroll (left) on the set of Here as a massive blanket