‘Hangover’ producer Scott Budnick cannot be pigeonholed

Scott Budnick might be best known for producing The Hangover
trilogy, one of the most successful R-rated comedy franchises ever.
But making frat-boy comedies and spending years among
ladder-climbers and clout-chasers in Hollywood left Budnick
wanting. “I just felt empty inside,” he tells Art of Power’s Aarti
Shahani. Budnick tells Shahani about the turn of events that led
him to become one of California’s foremost advocates for criminal
justice reform. He explains how he broke into the film industry —
and then why he left it to found the non-profit Anti-Recidivism
Coalition. And he describes his pivot back to creating films —
including the 2019 Michael B. Jordan drama Just Mercy — through One
Community, a production company with an explicitly political
agenda.