As a restauranteur, Tom Gordon didn’t set out to work in film, but his business acumen led him there anyway.

INTERVIEW / KODY FORD 

PHOTO COURTESY / TOM GORDON

Tom Gordon’s journey into filmmaking took him through Los Angeles, but didn’t really get started until years after he had returned to Arkansas. After graduating from Texas Christian University with a degree in finance, Gordon spent a few years out on the west coast, working as a manager at various restaurants before moving to Northwest Arkansas, where he co-founded Slim Chickens, the Northwest Arkansas-based restaurant chain. He has overseen Slim Chicken’s rapid expansion throughout the United States and even into the United Kingdom. While Gordon grew up in Little Rock with filmmakers like Jeff Nichols and Kathryn Francis Tucker, he never harbored any creative aspirations, only a love for movies. 

But a few years ago that changed after he received a call from Arkansas native, director Seth Savoy. A current Chicago resident, Savoy and his co-writer Jason Miller, of Conway, had a script called Echo Boomers, a crime thriller. At the time of the call, things were still in early stages, but Gordon gave them some advice that put them on a path to getting the project green lit. When Savoy called again a year and a half later, they had attached Michael Shannon and Patrick Schwartzenegger to star. Gordon boarded the film as executive producer. Echo Boomers was released in 2020. Gordon has since gone on to serve in a similar role for the film, Drunk Bus, starring Charlie Tahan, of Ozark. We chatted with Gordon about his love of movies and what he’s learned along the way.

 

What’s the first film that really inspired your love of movies?

The first one that made an impression on me that I really remember was seeing Star Wars at the old drive-in movie theater down around Roosevelt Road in Little Rock. And I was 3, maybe, but it was there. It was on the big screen. It was lights, camera, action. It was amazing. And I loved it ever since.

I was always a Star Wars fan. Like my brother and I watched it, I don’t know how many hundreds of times through our early elementary school and adolescent years. You know it had such a reach and that’s what attracted me initially. It’s made an impact on so many people and it became this whole world of its own, but still lives on today. And, and, you know, I guess what resonated with me and—I probably couldn’t have articulated it back then—but having the power of one story to reach that far, touch that many people and create that much excitement and effort and wealth and just all the things at that one story managed to bring to life. And having a story brought to life takes a lot of people, a lot of effort. And so it’s never just one thing, but it begins with one thing. And the power of that one thing is what always was intriguing to me.

Growing up, were you interested in making films at all or was this something that came to you later on?

I always liked the business. I like the movies and the world and the business of film production…And, you know, we just sorta kind of found our way there over the years. I was an extra in a movie that they filmed at my high school, Little Rock Central, years and years ago. And that was interesting to be on the set and seeing it all happen. And I was around some film business when I lived in Los Angeles. I worked in restaurants, but you’re in that world all the time in L.A. And that was interesting. It’s always been sort of there in the background for me. And in the last couple of years, I’ve had the opportunity to kind of dive back in and work with some great people and do some stuff together on some great films.

Whenever Echo Boomers came about, were you actively looking to get into filmmaking to be a producer, or was it just sort of a fluke that found you?

It was unfortunately a total fluke. So, Seth Savoy, the director, called me up. And I think that I just started on the [Arkansas] Cinema Society board years ago. I don’t really know quite how he found me or how he knew I was interested in movies, but he said he was up in Fayetteville and he said, “Hey man, can you have a beer with me?” I was like, “Sure, no problem.” And we started chatting and he talked about this movie that he wanted to do—Echo Boomers. It was going to be a $5 million budget. He had some partners and thought he could get it done. And we spent a couple hours talking and I was like, “Man, you got to pull that budget down. You don’t want to jump that high of a hurdle your first time out, you know, try to really tighten this thing up. And if you want to talk to somebody about this, like an Arkansas filmmaker—cause Seth was from little rock—I said, “You know, I can put you in touch with Jeff Nichols.” And he goes, “Really, you know him?” I said, “Yeah, I’ve known him since I was about five. I’ll do that for you.” He goes, “Man, that’d be fantastic.” So that evening I emailed Jeff and said, “Hey, y’all get together and talk when you can.” And I didn’t hear anything else. 

Like it just went quiet about a year and a half later, Seth called me and said, “Hey man, we got the green light. We’re making this movie. We’ve already sold some international rights for both Paramount. I got Patrick Schwartzenegger. I got Michael Shannon, thanks to Jeff Nichols. Because you connected me with him, I’d like for you to be a part of this. And we have a few other tranches of money that need to get filled and I’d like you to have them.” So we worked out a deal specific to me and my partner at the time that did this. And I said, “Yeah, man, I’ll invest, I’ll do it. I’ll work with you. And so, because of that, we jumped in and  kind of with the last transfer of money, were able to kind of push it over to go on and really ended up helping them and participating more than I thought we would. We were looking at rough cuts, edits, and special effects and giving them notes. And it was great. I loved that process. 

And so it’s funny [Drunk Bus] came in about partway through [the Echo Boomer’s] deal. My production partner called me and said, “Listen, one of my good friends in New York’s done a movie too and they need a little help. Like this really worked pretty good—the way we partnered up and did this—let’s do it with them.” So we’ve invested some more dollars and took our role as executive producers and helped them with edits and raising more money and getting things together and getting it out to the distributors. And really became a participant and, I hope, a valued asset to the directorial and writing team that put the product out there. It’s been great fun. You know, they’re two independent films, the returns will be what they are. I don’t know really where we are now because all of it’s almost exclusively video on demand, thanks to COVID. So, learning what receipts are​​—it takes like months and months and months but both films [have] done well. We got both of them distributed, both of them out in the world. And  I think for a first time group of partners, it’s pretty good to get two of them out there  first go round. So we’re very proud of what we did. I think that the movies will stand the test of time. They’re good films. And you know, I think it’s going to be a springboard for us as an executive producing team to go get out there and try to do more. 

You co-founded Slim Chickens with Greg Smart. You’ve grown it into an international brand, so were there lessons in business you learned through that which translated over into film? And were there some things that you learned once you got into the film business that you hadn’t encountered before as a businessman?

Well, a lot of it did translate, you know, a lot of what makes a good entrepreneur successful, which is, stick-to-it-ness and focus and drive, not getting sidetracked or distracted and really getting into the heart of the matter, which is what I was always kind of good at. Cutting through all the red tape BS and [being] like, “Hey, what are we really going to A) survive, B) make money, C) get this film in the distributor’s hands?” Like just how we get all the way through that. And that was extremely helpful. And I think it’s very correlative in any business… In the film business, it just takes more patience there. A lot of cars on the train that you got to kind of walk through to get to the front and distribution models. Contracts are very different from some of the stuff I was used to and had to learn how that worked really well, understand the accounting system, you know, that was all new to me. But we were able to navigate and negotiate our way to, I think, a good spot. And like I said, we managed to get both of them out. Both of them sold the distributors and, and are out there in the world, which I’m really proud of.