By Ken Mammarella
Contributing Writer

The dozen-plus movies that Chris Lemole has produced include Mudbound, a 2017 film that earned four Oscar nominations, and The Peanut Butter Falcon, the No. 1 independent movie of 2019.

And since the end of 2019, he’s been living in Centreville and producing movies, including Easy’s Waltz, an upcoming release starring Al Pacino, Vince Vaughn and Shania Twain.

“I needed to get out of L.A.,” he said. “It was incredibly hard to raise our five sons in the city. I was unhappy with the quality of life and the crime. I had made only two films in California (Zombeavers and Fool’s Paradise), and realized I could do my job from anywhere and fly in for meetings.”

He moved to be close to where he grew up (Northeast Philadelphia) to be near his parents – Gerald M., a retired doctor and ChristianaCare executive, and Emily Jane – and other family members.

He and his wife, Sonya, have a screening room he’s never used to screen a movie. Their sons, ranging from elementary to high school, enjoy it for video games. Family members do watch films together that “give them a solid base in storytelling,” including classics he enjoyed when younger (such as E.T., The Goonies and The Black Stallion), The Peanut Butter Falcon (“They love the story,” about a dreamer with Down syndrome), mature fare (such as Goodfellas, Casino and Tombstone) but not yet Mudbound (“such a heavy film” focused on racism and post-traumatic stress disorder).

This summer his eldest gets his first taste of the business at the Vancouver shooting location for Lemole’s next production.

Lemole is committed to his family: “I have a two-week rule,” he said, referring to the maximum time that he can be away, on location. And to his work: “I read scripts every night in bed,” he said, including scripts for movies he has admired and new scripts he might abandon midway. “And I’ll read books we’re looking at. At 10 most nights, I’m on the phone.” And sometimes the commitment is simultaneous: On this year’s family spring break trip, he spent six hours a day working the phone.

How his career evolved

Besides spending time with his family, Lemole also enjoys golfing, surfing and following all Philadelphia sports teams, particularly the Eagles. “We want the game in the background, and we’re watching very closely, but it’s a wonderful kind of vehicle to get us all together and talk about life.”

Lemole started college at Bryn Athyn College and transferred to Villanova University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history and a law degree. He moved across the country to form his own identity and career, first through “the boot camp” of three years for United Talent Agency. 

“After closing the door on many different positions within the biz, I decided that producing was what I wanted to do,” he told a Bryn Athyn audience in 2019. “Film is a medium that joins the human experience, where we can relate to one another and share similar emotions. Conversely, film can expose the audience to new ideas. … Producing allowed me to find the stories that excited me and find the most impactful way to tell them.” As he said in the interview: “I love having my fingerprints all over the film.”

He started producing with 2011’s From the Head, written and directed by his brother-in-law, George Griffith. In 2013, Lemole and Tim Zajaros founded Armory Films, “nurturing distinctive stories into groundbreaking films,” according to Armory’s site. Lemole figures he devotes two years to making a movie. “If I’m going to live with it that long, I want it to have a meaning or a message and it strikes a chord,” he said. “We just make films we like.” 

“Chris Lemole is one of the best people I know,” said Michael Schwartz, one of the directors and writers of The Peanut Butter Falcon. “He’s fun to be around, inspiring, and can be trusted to fight for what he believes in. My directing partner Tyler [Nilson] and I had the privilege of getting to know Chris working on our first movie The Peanut Butter Falcon together. It was a risky movie to make, but Chris understood what we were trying to do and the mark we were trying to leave on the world. 

“He put his full weight behind us as artists and when no distribution company wanted to put out that movie. he doubled down on his gut belief that we, along with our cast and crew, had made something people wanted to see. That movie went on to become the highest grossing platform release of the year.

“I owe my entire career as an artist to Chris but even more importantly he’s a true friend, when he lived close by I’d go to his house every Sunday to watch football with his family ‘Go Birds.’ Seeing him as a father and a husband is just as impressive as seeing him as a movie producer. The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”

In charge of everything

In 2021, Lemole, Zajaros and Don Handfield founded Thunder Comics, which has nurtured multiple worlds and many characters that could become movie franchises. “We believe stories are real estate,” they wrote on Thunder Comics’ site. “Intellectual property is the next gold rush.”

A film can credit multiple people as different types of producers, he said, noting that some get the designation by attaching talent or funding. As the producer, Lemole compares himself to “the sheriff of the town who decides which projects are made and with whom.” 

“Much of my time is spent wondering and worrying about how I’m going to solve the five problems in front of me, knowing that five more serious ones are coming down the pike. And how do we get out of this alive while making the best film possible? It’s not for the faint of heart.”

“The system is broken,” he said of how movies are distributed and hence money flows. “And I see opportunity in chaos.” That’s an interesting observation by someone nicknamed “Captain Chaos” by his family. 

Moviemaking has moved to many jurisdictions beyond Hollywood, enticed by tax credits and other incentives. He’s been working with Gov. Matt Meyer and others to legislate tax credits to encourage more movies to be made in Delaware. “I’d love to make a movie and stay in my own bed,” he said.

Talk like a producer

Ten inside-Hollywood terms that movie producer Chris Lemole used in his interview with Greenville & Hockessin Life or in a 2019 talk at Bryn Athyn College, where he started college:

Coverage: A commissioned summary of a script that might encourage potential producers to read it themselves.

Creative: A noun referring to someone who makes a movie special through their creativity.

Distro: Short for the distribution of a movie, or one of the biggest tasks that he doesn’t handle.

Downstream windows: Money-making opportunities after a movie is shown at first-run theaters. Consumers used to buy DVDs, but they’re no longer a significant thing in this age of streaming.

Heat: The buzz coming from the talent attached to a project.

Locked: Finalized.

Mezz position: Financing for a film that’s between senior debt and equity for recouping investments (yes, it’s complicated). The term is from the mezzanine, between the best seats in a theater and the more distant seats in the balcony. 

Post: Short for post-production, or the work needed after principal shooting ends.

Pre: Short for pre-production. 

2x: Generally, how much more money is spent marketing a movie over making it. Lemole pronounced it “two ex,” noting the ratio is changing in the age of influencers.