Imagine Plunges Deeper Into Documentaries With ‘Stormy’ Fare

variety.com:

Addie Morfoot Contributor The South by Southwest debut of “Stormy” was not your typical Imagine Documentaries premiere. About adult film star Stormy Daniels’ alleged affair with former President Donald Trump, the film drew an eclectic crowd that included porn stars and “Muppet” director-producer Frank Oz, who sat in the same row as Daniels and her entourage made up mainly of buff bodyguards.

Dogs sniffed Austin’s Stateside Theater prior to the screening. After it unspooled, Daniels spoke to the SXSW audience, revealing that she first met “Stormy” exec producer Judd Apatow when he hired her for a small part in his 2005 film “40 Year-Old Virgin.” When she was a no-show due to a death in the family, Apatow sent her flowers and rescheduled her shoot date. “I thought he would replace me,” Daniels, who would go on to appear in “Knocked Up” for the filmmaker, told the crowd, with director Sarah Gibson standing nearby.

As a parting shot, Daniels yelled out, “Fuck Trump.” It was a first for an Imagine Doc post premiere Q&A, but might not be the last politically charged debut for the division, now solely under the leadership of Sara Bernstein and ramping up its output significantly. “Stormy,” which premiered on Peacock on March 18, marks the fifth docu that the non-fiction branch of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment has released since January. “Frida,” Carla Gutierrez’s docu about iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, debuted at Sundance and began streaming on Amazon Prime Video in March.