Ryan Coogler's ‘Sinners’ shows that storytellers should own their stories

Ryan Coogler, the audacious director behind Fruitvale Station, Black Panther and Creed, signed a creative production deal so revolutionary it deserves a standing ovation. For his new blockbuster Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan with Hailee Steinfeld, currently in theatres and easily the best IMAX experience you’ll have this year, Coogler dictated the terms—all the terms. Not only does Coogler direct and produce Sinners, he owns it. Future spin-offs, sequels, series, side-projects—all will happen (or not happen) entirely at his discretion. The studio doesn’t get to override him, replace him, or dilute his vision with corporate gloss. In an era where “franchise" is synonymous with “factory farming", this is a proclamation of emancipation.

This isn’t a standard “first-look" deal, where a creator gets the privilege of being considered first…only to eventually watch a studio rip apart the baby they midwifed. Coogler’s arrangement is unprecedented: final-cut authority, narrative control, and crucially, an ownership-stake that ensures his hands never leave the wheel.

Good. Sinners is exactly the kind of unclassifiable miracle no modern studio would greenlight by committee: a blood-soaked, soul-soaring vampire musical steeped in Southern blues, spiritual longing, and righteous fury. It swings between violence and balladry, bar fights and gospel breakdowns. It’s a fierce, strange, gorgeous piece of cinema—and its triumphant reception proves that audiences crave films that sound like one voice singing, not a marketing committee warbling off-key. It’s spectacularly original.

Coogler’s win isn’t about one movie. It’s about what could come next. His contract cracks open an idea that is scaring the studios: that storytellers should control the stories.

The problem is not new. The minute a film or TV show becomes a hit, vultures circle—and the next thing you know, a pristine idea is being trussed up for franchising, merchandising, and increasingly embarrassing spin-offs. Cautionary tales abound. Visionary writer Alan Moore’s graphic novels get turned into botched blockbusters and shows that he not only refuses to watch, but literally puts curses on. Netflix’s The Witcher franchise churns on, even after original author Andrzej Sapkowski publicly expressed his lack of faith in the screen adaptations.

Frank Darabont, who created the crackling The Walking Dead, was unceremoniously fired after the first season, leaving a once-electrifying show to limp along for a decade, the series itself becoming a zombie lurching from season to season. George Lucas sold his Star Wars universe to Disney and can see it become an assembly line product, complete with merchandising blueprints and focus-grouped protagonists. Can even the superfans keep up with all the spin-offs and reboots? Closer home, Shekhar Kapur—whose 1987 classic Mr India remains a beloved landmark of Hindi cinema—didn’t have a say in the fate of his creation, with its intellectual property (IP) reportedly sold, with three films on the way.

Storytellers dream the dream. The corporations dream of lunchboxes.

In India, the biggest behemoth-maker is giving us hope. S.S. Rajamouli, the architect of Baahubali and RRR, makes sure that he retains control of his cinematic worlds. His sagas feel unified and coherent because they are shielded from studios eager to chop them into serialised, endlessly diluted “content universes". Countless filmmakers have watched their visions diluted, dissected, and drained because they didn’t own the key to their own kingdoms. Rajamouli, however, is not a director for hire; he is the keeper of the flame.

Quentin Tarantino, steadfast in his intent to direct 10 films only, decided not to direct a sequel to his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but Brad Pitt, who loved the script, asked the filmmaker if he would be open to someone else directing. Tarantino asked who, and Pitt named Fincher. This is a double whammy: a director Tarantino loves, and one who has given Pitt his most iconic roles. Even though the film (currently referred to as ‘The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth’) is a Netflix project, it is being made solely on the basis of Tarantino’s blessing. This is not a hasty corporate reboot, not a spin-off series designed by committee, but a handpicked passing of the torch: artist to artist.

In these IP-obsessed times, this kind of sovereignty might matter more than any single film. Robert Zemeckis’ greatest contribution to pop-culture might not be Forrest Gump but his simple, stubborn refusal to allow a Back to the Future remake. There will be, at least as long as Zemeckis is alive, no Timothée Chalamet-version of Marty McFly, no electric-silent DeLoreans. Unlike his buddies Lucas and even Steven Spielberg, who keeps producing infinitely mediocre Jurassic Park sequels, Zemeckis has drawn a line in the sand. He’s guarding the sanctity of the tale he spun. This is not nostalgia talking. It’s necessity.

Great stories demand guardians, not committees. When creators are empowered to protect their creations, storytelling itself becomes safer, stranger, bolder, and infinitely more rewarding. When corporations hijack art, it dies a slow, ugly death: flattened by demographics, zombified by algorithms, murdered by memos. Coogler’s deal—like Rajamouli’s independence, like Tarantino’s strategy, like Zemeckis’ defiance—shows us another way. It promises a world where stories are not just products but living, breathing dreams, shepherded by the people who first dared to dream them.

We must not only imagine that world, but fight for it. Pick up a wooden stake and prepare to get bloody. Save the stories from the sinners.

Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen.

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