At the Sundance Film Festival held in January this year, the film Palm Springs was sold to streaming service Hulu and distribution company Neon for a record-breaking US$22 million. And the company that was involved in financing the film, Sun Entertainment Culture Los Angeles (SECLA) is headed by Thomas Lim, who credits much of his recent success in the highly competitive Hollywood film industry to his time spent making his early films in Macau.
“Without Macau, I wouldn’t be in Hollywood. It’s as simple as that,” Thomas says. “Macau nurtured me as a young filmmaker when I made my first film Roulette City, and supported me through my second film Sea of Mirrors. Both films were shot in Macau and I received immense support from the community, and that gave me both the opportunity and confidence to continue to make films.”
Born in Singapore, Thomas lived in Macau from 2008 to 2010, and continues to return here regularly. His first film Roulette City was made here in 2010. Then the writer/director returned in 2016 to make the thriller Sea of Mirrors.
“That’s when I met and became friends with the Chairman of Sun Entertainment Group – Alex Dong, who later decided to set up the L.A office and put me in charge,” he explains.
Palm Springs is a romantic comedy starring Andy Samberg from the highly successful Brooklyn Nine-Nine series, and Cristin Milioti from How I Met Your Mother. They play a pair of wedding guests who are trapped living the same day over and over again in the Southern Cali- fornia desert town. The film also stars the very talented J. K. Simmons (Whiplash) and Camila Mendes (Riverdale). Palm Springs premiered to a sell-out crowd at Sundance on January 26 and was an instant hit.
“The audience loved it and the buyers were excited. All the hard work paid off when the film was sold the next day as the largest sale ever at Sundance, US$22 million,” notes Lim happily.
Not bad for his company’s debut project in Hollywood, but the suc- cess did not come over night.
“I’ve been in Hollywood for more than five years now. It was really tough the first two years, then years three and four got better, and the last year and half saw a big leap forward when I began taking charge of the L.A office for Sun Entertainment,” says Thomas.
“Hollywood is a very local industry. In my opinion, not only is it not international… it’s not even American. It’s just Hollywood culture.”
“People get their dreams crushed when they come to Hollywood be- cause it’s very different from what they expect. It is extremely difficult for an outsider (from other parts of the U.S, or worse, from overseas or in our case – from Asia) to find work in Hollywood.”
Therefore, Thomas hopes to be able to create more opportunities for Asians in Hollywood through his company, and he stresses the im- portance of having friends and forming good relationships in the city.
“It’s isolating and brutal here. The definition of ‘friends’ in L.A is – ‘not enemies’,” he says. “If there’s one thing that’s most important in Hollywood, it’s ‘relationships’. I’d argue it’s even more important than money or talent, as it’s only through relationships that the actual doors of Hollywood open to you and the right projects are presented to you for investment and participation.”
Thomas notes that networking and trying to convince people to take him seriously have been some of the biggest challenges in Hollywood.
“But since the success of Palm Springs, Hollywood is taking us a lot more seriously now!” he laughs.
And the most exciting part of his job is having the chance to work with some of the very best talents in the world.
“I’m still sometimes in awe when I walk through the hallways of ma- jor Hollywood studios or major agencies for my meetings with them, and see the many movie posters and movie star photos staring back at me.”
After a year of project development, hiring writers and producers for various projects, Sun Entertainment entered into a partnership with US company Limelight last year, focusing more on the financing side of the movie business. Sun Entertainment also offers advice to its Ameri- can partners on how to succeed in the lucrative China market.
“The key factors for success are the combination of the right story that resonates with Chinese audiences, and the right companies behind the creation and distribution of the projects,” notes Thomas. “However one potential pitfall might be to underestimate the market and its audi- ence, and do things like giving a Chinese star just a token role and expect Chinese audiences to cheer for the film,” he warns.
Another problem is when movies try to stereotype aspects of Chi- nese culture from a narrow American perspective.
“That’s definitely a no-no. It’s very important to do in-depth re- search in order to do well in the Chinese market.”
Naturally, Sun Entertainment hopes to use the recent success of Palm Springs to springboard itself and partner Limelight towards a num- ber of other big projects. And Thomas has his own more personal goals too.
“My biggest goal in life is to do well in Hollywood so that I can give back to Macau (my filmmaking home) and Singapore (my native coun- try), and inspire the next generations in these two places to chase their Hollywood dreams,” he says.
“Like many 20 year olds in both Macau and Singapore, I was full of passion and drive when I was starting off in the industry, and like them, I also had that same disorienting feeling of not knowing how to take the next step. Hopefully my path through Singapore, Macau, China, Japan and now Hollywood will be able to provide these kids a bit of a guiding light as they close their eyes and dream of Hollywood every night!”
