In November 2019, a crew of about 100 assembled in the small town of Thomasville, Georgia, to shoot The Tiger Rising, based on Kate DiCamillo’s 2001 children’s book about a 12-year-old boy who finds a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel where he lives with his father.
With a budget of $10 million and Dennis Quaid and Queen Latifah in starring roles, the independent film undoubtedly seemed like an appealing gig. But The Tiger Rising turned into an ordeal of broken promises, overdue bills and some union members still owed benefits nearly two years after the cameras stopped rolling. According to IMDb, four of the producers or executive producers on the project — Ryan Donnell Smith, Allen Cheney, Emily Hunter Salveson and Ryan Winterstern — would later be credited on Alec Baldwin’s Rust.
The Hollywood Reporter has obtained correspondence and documents that provide a window into the cascading problems that plagued the still-unreleased Tiger Rising — troubles that foreshadowed issues on subsequent productions involving these individuals. The material also reveals the unchecked nature of low-budget filmmaking, even when the major unions are involved. It is an area that has attracted an array of players, some of whom appear to be lured by federal and state tax credits that are offered up regardless of whether the films they make are ever distributed.
The bitterness of the experience on The Tiger Rising was encapsulated in an anonymous email sent to Smith and other key players on the project in February 2020, when the film was in postproduction. “It is absolutely disgusting how you are treating the entire Tiger Rising crew,” it read. “Not paying our vendors, not paying into our health and pension [plans]. There are a ton of crew who needed this show’s hours to keep their health insurance, and now do not have health insurance. … We will never forget this. We busted our asses to get this film done, and this is how you treat us.”
