Award-Winning Filmmaker R.J. Cutler Signs With WME As He Embarks On Elton John Doc

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: WME has signed filmmaker R.J. Cutler and his production company This Machine, fresh off the announcement of Cutler’s upcoming documentary on Elton John.“The agency will work with the award-winning filmmaker – who has made some of the most significant documentaries and television series of the past quarter century – in all areas,” according to Cutler’s PR reps.Deadline broke the news last week that Disney Original Documentary and Disney+ won the rights to the Elton John feature, to be co-directed by Cutler and John’s life partner David Furnish, in a deal pegged at around $30 million.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The Final Elton John Performances And the Years That Made His Legend will include concert performances spanning 50 years, as well as the recording artist’s journals and contemporary footage of his family (John and Furnish are parents to two boys—Zachary, age 8, and Elijah, 6).Over the course of a 30-year career, Cutler has become one of the leading figures in nonfiction film.

He most recently directed the Oscar-shortlisted and Emmy-nominated documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, which Apple TV+ scooped up in another mega-deal (reportedly $25 million).

His credits include producing the seminal 1993 Oscar-nominated documentary The War Room, which took viewers inside the Clinton presidential campaign with strategists James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, and another acclaimed politically-themed doc, 2013’s The World According to Dick Cheney.