LOS ANGELES — Two years ago, when the pandemic plunged the movie industry into one of its darkest periods, New Republic Pictures and its founder and chief executive, Brian Oliver, were touted as a bright light.
As movie theaters shuttered, toppling a significant chunk of Hollywood revenue, and studios scrambled to find alternatives that would allow them to release their movies and recover their investments while looking for new financing options, New Republic signed a more than $200 million deal with Paramount Pictures to fund up to a quarter of the budgets on 10 movies, including "Top Gun: Maverick," in exchange for a share in any profits or losses from the movies.
The New Republic deal provided something of a lifeline: mitigating Paramount's risks while bankrolling eagerly anticipated films such as "Coming 2 America" and the "Mission: Impossible" sequels.
