Nicolas Chartier

Nicolas Chartier
Nicolas Chartier
Born	France
Occupation	Film producer
Awards	Academy Award for Best Picture (2010); BAFTA Award for Best Film (2010); PGA Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture (2010)
Website	https://voltagepictures.com

Nicolas Chartier (French: [nikɔla ʃaʁtje]) is a French film producer. In 2005, he founded Voltage Pictures, a Los Angeles–based film production and distribution company, and is its CEO.

Early life

Chartier, during his time as a Disneyland Paris janitor, sold his first screenplay which allowed him to buy a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. In order to scrape together a living, he wrote soft-core porn for cable TV.^[1] From there, Chartier moved on to hold various executive level sales and acquisitions roles. He championed the sale of film My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Academy Award-winning film Crash directed by Paul Haggis.^[2] Later on, Chartier founded Voltage Pictures, where his breakthrough film The Hurt Locker allowed him to produce other successful films.

Career

Film

The Hurt Locker was Voltage's first in-house production and won six Academy Awards in 2009, including Best Picture. Killer Joe was Voltage's second production, directed by William Friedkin and starring Matthew McConaughey. In 2013, Nicolas executive produced Dallas Buyers Club, for which Matthew McConaughey won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Jared Leto for Best Supporting Actor. He also produced The Company You Keep, directed by Robert Redford and starring Robert Redford and Shia LaBeouf, The Zero Theorem directed by Terry Gilliam, starring Christoph Waltz; Don Jon, directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, starring Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore; Good Kill, directed by Andrew Niccol, starring Ethan Hawke; Fathers and Daughters, starring Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, and Aaron Paul; I.T. directed by John Moore starring Pierce Brosnan and is an executive producer on A Tale of Love and Darkness, written, directed by and starring Natalie Portman and was an official selection at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.^[2]

Other movies include I Feel Pretty starring Amy Schumer and Michelle Williams, which grossed nearly $100 million worldwide; Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile starring Zac Efron and Lily Collins, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film festival; After starring Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and based on the worldwide best-seller from Anna Todd, and Ava starring Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, John Malkovich, Common and Geena Davis, which is currently in post-production.^[2]

Previous films produced by Chartier also include Colossal written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis and A Family Man directed by Mark Williams starring Gerard Butler which both premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. He was also executive producer on Taylor Sheridan’s directorial debut Wind River, starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, which premiered to rave reviews at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival which took over $44 million in worldwide box office.^[2]

Chartier is best known for his work in financing The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Jeremy Renner. The film won many awards, including an Academy Award.^[3]

In 2006, The Hurt Locker script was circulated by CAA to foreign sales companies in hopes of getting picked up and financed. Chartier, who owns Voltage Pictures, called CAA to speak more in detail about the film as well as wanting to help produce it. The film asked for $20 million, which Chartier pointed out as too high of a budget. An Iraqi war drama with no notable stars attached, would unlikely receive any reasonable funding from skeptical foreign buyers.^[1] The budget was inevitably lowered by 35%, down to $13 million. In order to acquire proof of finance for a production loan Chartier managed to put together 25-30% of pre-sale loans from various territories like the EU, Asia, and even airline companies. Unable to get the bulk of the production loan in time before pre-production, Chartier put in his own money in order to finance the bulk of the film, going as far as mortgaging his own home. In all, the overall budget for The Hurt Locker was $15 million. The film went on to generate $49.2 million at the box office.^[4]

Before the Oscars, the Academy banned Chartier from the ceremony for sending out a mass email to voters to try to convince them to vote for the film rather than James Cameron's Avatar.^[5] In response, Chartier threw his own private party.^[6] Jeff Steele (CFO of Magnet Media Group) wrote about Chartier on the blogpost The Warp writing, "I would say that anybody who can cobble together the financing from pre-sales, gap, bridge, tax credits and equity funding to produce a theatrical feature worthy of consideration for Best Picture is already a winner in my book."^[4]