After his Amazon MGM film “Nickel Boys” got a Best Picture nomination, writer/director RaMell Ross is eyeing his next projects — but understands that funding could prove a hurdle.
Ross told The Hollywood Reporter at Sunday’s Oscars that, after making his feature narrative debut with “Nickel Boys,” he knows that financing his indies would be a “philanthropic” venture due to a lack of guaranteed financial return. (“Nickel Boys,” for one, grossed just over $3.1 million worldwide off an allegedly $23 million budget.)
“I think I’ve made enough films for people to say that I can make things relatively well,” Ross said. “So I’m asking someone to give me $10 million for two projects. Both of them, I think, have long cultural lives, but it has to be philanthropic because it’s not really a return. But I think they’re deep in meaning and can change a lot of people’s view on the world.”
He added of both potential projects, “They’re written out. I’ve been thinking about them for [five, six] years. We’re just kind of waiting for someone to trust in the projects.”
Ross was Oscar-nominated in 2025 for Best Adapted Screenplay, alongside his co-writer and producing collaborator Joslyn Barnes, for the Colson Whitehead adaptation “Nickel Boys.” The film was produced by Plan B’s Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, along with David Levine and Barnes, all Oscar nominees for Best Picture for “Nickel Boys.” Ross and Barnes were nominated for Best Documentary Feature in 2019 for “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” which Ross directed.
Ross received the Auteur Award at the 2024 IndieWire Honors event, and IndieWire deemed Ross’ “Nickel Boys” the best film of 2024 last year.
Meanwhile, Ross told IndieWire at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards, where “Nickel Boys” was nominated for Best Feature and Best Cinematography, that he hopes Hollywood will back more risk-taking features.
“I think we should be afraid of things continuing as they are, and we should hope for new models and paradigms and more risk, and a more generous assessment of relationships between return and piece, piece of work,” Ross said. “It would be nice if they could be slightly more divorced so that the work isn’t being reduced to communicate, it’s actually being made more complex, to mystify. That doesn’t necessarily make money.”
He continued, “It’s strange because big budget doesn’t necessarily imply theatrical release anymore. I don’t think you need a lot of money to make a film that’s cinematic and deserves to be in theaters, but people feel like there’s a certain production quality that one needs. When unions come into play, the budgets are bloated. I don’t have the answers.”
