Producer Kevin Matossian is the founder and CEO of SilverCrest Entertainment LLC, a Los Angeles-based film and television production company. Matossian’s extensive background in production includes The Promise, September Dawn, and Lost. His latest project Outbreak is the story of a park ranger, mourning the loss of his son who is also contending with a horrific outbreak that is consuming his small town that only he seems prepared to deal with. The film is opening in theaters today. Matossian recently spoke to Immersive via Zoom.

[Note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity]

How did you first get involved with the project?

I got involved with Outbreak more then five years ago. It was pre-pandemic. I was playing golf with my friend Jeff Wolfe. He told me his idea for a horror zombie film that’s not a horror zombie film and how it wrapped up with the big reveal, and I was blown away.

Talk a little bit about working through COVID-19 on this.

We had the vision and the basis of a script early on. It’s difficult to get these stories right, especially when it’s a genre film, but it’s supposed to be more.  This is really about the relationship of a husband and wife dealing with loss. And we’ve thrown it into this world of zombies and horror and thrills, but it’s not only that.  It’s more than that and the issue was hiring the right writer early on… Lance Ochsner was fantastic to work with.

How far did you get pre-covid?

We had financiers attached but the pandemic shut everything down, and financing fell out. We shut things down, but we still had the project, so we talked about doing it during the pandemic on a lower budget but everything got more expensive so we had to pull the plug.

A couple of years later Jeff called me and said he still wanted to make it. We hatched an idea to make it for a lot less money… That’s essentially what we did with Outbreak and to all his credit, Jeff, his wife, Jennifer, his family, his friends, myself included, ended up financing the film personally.

It’s harder to get these kinds of projects made now in the current market, even with horror having a big moment…

Jeff had a vision that drove me to the story, which was this relationship with dealing with the most horrible thing in the world; the loss of a child. We see the decomposition of characters, especially our hero who falls apart, and I don’t want to get into any spoilers, but we watch this happen in the confines of a horror film.

So anyway, we set out to do something more than just a simple genre film. We do think there’s a market for it. What’s cool is if you take nothing from the film and just wanted to watch it as a horror film, in any language, in any part of the world, you can do that.  But its so much more.

How did you get your start producing?

My mentor in the film business is Ralph Winter (Star Trek, X-Men). He took me under his wing early on. He’s such a legendary producer, and I learned so much just watching him work.

Ralph said to me years ago, “Do you know what truly makes a great producer? Common sense. To know that a camera shouldn’t cost you a million dollars a week. To know that you shouldn’t pay a thousand dollars an hour to have prosthetic teeth cleaned.”  That stuck with me.

These things can get pretty crazy, fairly easily…

I remember looking at scripts that Ralph had read.  He would read through a script in 45 minutes or an hour, whatever it was, with a little pencil. He’d both enjoy it, and he’d make quick notes, dollar signs for something very expensive, “soap” for something that’s soap opera or whatever. He would just make little notations. That’s how I learned to break down a script.

I would look at these giant set pieces in a script and go, you know what? Three of those six make sense. Three of them don’t do anything for the story and cost exponentially more than should be spent. Cut ’em. Go back with the writer and the director and rework them.

How much did you have to adapt the script to the new budget?

Not too much. It was such a joy because you have Jeff Wolfe. He and his team, people whose careers he has helped launch, came back and stepped up to make this happen safely and on budget. Jeff had the expertise and experience, that made my life a lot easier to be able to support this and get it done.

Do you have any favorite scenes in the movie?

Absolutely, the very end! We bring all the loose ends together, and the emotion that we were able to pack into that last two or three minutes, is goosebump-worthy. The emotion that we were able to pack up into those very last moments by bar none.

What’s it like being on the other end of this now?

It feels great to finally have it come out.  This is a psychological thriller from beginning to end. I just want to take you on a rollercoaster ride. If you laugh, or if you cry, I’ve done my job. That’s what we strive for. I want you to finish watching the movie and go wow, I didn’t see that coming.

I’m excited for people to watch Outbreak because the screenings that we’ve done so far have had overwhelmingly great responses.  That’s what I hope that the world sees out of it. I think Jeff did a great job.

Outbreak is now playing in theaters.

Eric Green
Author

Eric Green has over 25 years of professional experience producing creative, marketing, and journalistic content. Born in Flushing, Queens and based in Los Angeles, Green has a catalog of hundreds of articles, stories, photographs, drawings, and more. He is the director of the celebrated 2014 Documentary, Beautiful Noise and the author of the novella Redyn, the graphic novel Bonk and Woof, and the novel, The Lost Year. Currently, he is hard at work on a book chronicling the lives of the greatest Character Actors.