Dallas Sonnier

Dallas Sonnier was born Joseph Albert Sonnier IV in the Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, US.[4] His parents, Becky and Dr. Joseph Sonnier moved from Shreveport, Louisiana to Dallas, Texas, shortly before he was born in 1980. Sonnier's nickname originated with his parents referring to him as "the Dallas baby" and the moniker stuck with him throughout his life.[5]

Sonnier developed an ambition to begin making movies while still in high school; to this end, he began taking continuing education classes in screenwriting at Southern Methodist University during the Summer before his senior year at Highland Park High School. He attended film classes at the University of Southern California while still in high school, and later as an undergrad, becoming one of five students to inaugurate the school's joint business-film program, introducing him to studio executives, entertainment attorneys, agents, and talent managers. During this period, he learned about aspects of the film making process beyond writing and directing.[5]

After graduating from USC, Sonnier obtained a job with United Talent Agency, beginning in the mailroom and working his way up to Agent Trainee. After a few years, he left the agency to join a start-up management firm run by David Schiff. In 2008, Sonnier and Jack Heller, a USC classmate, founded Caliber Media. While attending San Diego Comic Con, the pair met former wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin, eventually collaborating with him on nine low-budget action movies that were sold to distributors and premiered on DVD and video-on-demand. Caliber segued into other independent projects, before raising funds for two years in order to shoot Bone Tomahawk; the script had been written by one of the pair's clients, S. Craig Zahler, whom they had been managing for two years.[6]

Zahler's script attracted Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins, but the interested financiers wanted the script shortened. After several years of negotiations, Russell's agents were ready to move on if the movie was not fully financed in a matter of months. To secure financing for the film, in 2014, Sonnier took a new mortgage on his house. The film failed at the box office, but found success in ancillary markets like DVD sales and VOD rentals.[7]

Following production on Bone Tomahawk, Sonnier departed Caliber to found Cinestate, a production company based in Dallas, with the intention of bringing film production to Texas. Sonnier would go on to collaborate with Zahler for two more films: Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete.[8][9]

In 2022, Sonnier became a key architect for the entertainment division of conservative news website and media company The Daily Wire.[10]

Sonnier has stated that his approach to production is giving total creative freedom to writers and directors while also keeping budgets low enough that their projects can still be profitable.[11][12][13][8] In interviews, he has been adamant about not making films that "pander" to any audience, as well as not filtering directors' creativity.[8] His business model relies on making films as widely available as possible—through purchase, rental, or streaming—on multiple platforms to "piece together" revenue from every possible source.

Sonnier is also an advocate for filmmaking outside of New York and Los Angeles and not relying on the model of traditional studio systems.[14]

Sonnier founded Cinestate upon his move back to Dallas from California. According to him, the unique selling point of the company was that it produced films that were creatively unfiltered by producers or executives, and which represented the artistic vision of their creators.[8]

While revenue from Cinestate productions were a fraction of major studio releases, the company remained profitable by keeping production costs low and relying on word-of-mouth.[9]

In 2018, Sonnier completed the deal to acquire all the assets and trademarks of the Fangoria brand, including the horror movie magazine, and relaunched it as a division of Cinestate. Fangoria became print only and Sonnier hired a brand-new editor-in-chief, Phil Nobile Jr. of Birth.Movies.Death. As part of the arrangement, Cinestate acquired control over all material from over 300 issues of Fangoria, spanning the past forty years.

Cinestate also extended its brand into other content, publishing six genre novels (three under the Cinestate imprint and three under a Fangoria imprint), as well as audiobook adaptations of screenplays.[8]

In 2020, following the arrest of producer Adam Donaghey for sexual assault and a Daily Beast article alleging misconduct on Cinestate sets, Sonnier was criticized for downplaying abusive behavior and endangering employees. The scandal lead to Fangoria being sold, all of Cinestate's social media and websites went dormant, the company was closed and its entire staff was laid off.[15][16]

• Dallas Sonnier at IMDb