Photograph courtesy of A24
Opus writer/director Mark Anthony Green credits all the great things he’s achieved in his life and career to his legendary Atlanta alma mater, Morehouse College. Green introduced his directorial debut—a stylish horror film set in the celebrity world of music starring Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) and two-time Oscar nominee John Malkovich—at Atlantic Station, where the 2010 graduate would watch films weekly as a student. In front of an audience that included current Morehouse students and some of his close Morehouse classmates, Green not only shared his truth, but also had key people from the college’s administration stand up and be recognized.
“Attending Morehouse College was the best decision that I have ever made,” Green repeated to Atlanta magazine in an interview the following morning. “Graduating took me five years, and that was such a communal thing. People like Kevin Booker, who was over student affairs, and James Stotts, who was the financial aid officer of the school, these are two human beings that saw potential in me. This is what they do for a living: They see potential in young Black men.”
Photograph courtesy of A24
To the outside world, that belief first manifested for Green in 2015 when he became the GQ Style Guy. His passion for style, however, traveled with him from Kansas City, where his family settled when he was 10. In Atlanta, he got a few pointers working part-time at renowned men’s clothing store Sid Mashburn. What attracted him to Atlanta in the first place is partly the celebrity pull he explores in Opus, which he also wrote. In the film, John Malkovich’s Moretti is a secluded pop superstar whose team delivers coveted invites to magazine editor-in-chief Stan (The White Lotus Emmy winner Murray Bartlett) and young journalist Ariel to visit his off-the-radar Utah compound and listen to his first album in 30 years.
“André 3000 brought me to Morehouse,” Green shares. “It was a tag team between André 3000 and Spelman.” His love for the eclectic OutKast rapper, particularly his role in the duo’s influential 2003 album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, put Atlanta on Green’s radar. Green and his mom later toured Atlanta colleges. Although he loved Morehouse, another school sold him. “I went to Spelman next door and said, ‘I’m going to Morehouse,’” he says.
Spelman also shows up in Opus. For those paying attention, Ariel lounges in her Spelman sweatshirt. Although the school’s full name is not visible, snatches of the letters, not to mention the signature white with a splash of light blue, are unmistakable.
“I wanted the protagonist in this film to be a smart Black woman that was thoughtful and didn’t do something stupid like the horror tropes of falling or running towards where the boogeyman is,” he explains. “I have so many brilliant, beautiful Black women in my life that making her a Spelman grad felt not only natural because of her intelligence and cool and the way she dresses and all the things, but it just felt like a cool thing. I just think Ariel would have gone to Spelman.”
Green’s eyes and ears in the industry very much feed into Opus, which took him six years to write. During his time at GQ, Green had memorable interviews with André 3000, Dave Chappelle, Janelle Monáe, Tom Ford, and SNL’s Micheal Che and Colin Jost, among others. In the film, Moretti has his own philosophy, a religion even, in the “Levelists” that Green thoroughly explained in a roughly 360-page book. The book only appears in the film, but it allowed Green to have complete authority of the film and answer the many questions that came up during production.
Photograph courtesy of A24
Nile Rodgers and Atlanta’s own The Dream, who attended the Atlanta screening, created original music for Moretti, with John Malkovich lending his own vocals. “I crafted this film to feel like a pop record, because it feels so good when Dream makes a song and it jams,” Green told the crowd. “It feels so good.” As elated as Green was to work with The Dream, he admitted that it was not a carefree experience, especially since the hitmaker was also working with a real-life music icon.
“Watching Dream work is the most amazing, frustrating thing on the planet, because I will watch him make nine Beyoncé songs and I need three. And I’m just there, and he’s like, ‘It ain’t found me yet,’” he said during his Atlantic Station Q&A with Atlanta-based moderator Janeé Bolden. “I got the whole A24 on my neck, right? And he’s like, ‘it ain’t found me yet.’”
Those songs are so good that they are captured on Opus: The Moretti EP, which was released alongside the film.
With Opus, Green has captured some magic of his own. Not only does the film sound great, it’s also visually stunning and filled with an unexpected dark humor. For many young people who, like Ariel, are striving for success, the film’s ending poses a provocative question about what that success really means in the end. Without spoiling any of the film, Green, like Ariel, has found that when it comes to making his own dreams come true, “the win is deeply complicated.”
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