Nicholas Weinstock AB '91 would describe his journey into entertainment as nothing short of “wildly staggered.” After graduating from Harvard with a degree in anthropology, Nicholas attended graduate school for literature at the University of Botswana. “You know, that old Harvard-U.B. feeder,” Nicholas smiles, “[then I] did further graduate studies in creative writing at the University of Cape Town, lived in South Africa during the country’s first national elections when Nelson Mandela became president, and finally came back to my hometown of New York City to work in book publishing at Random House and then Riverhead Books.”  

After deciding to veer off the editorial path and become a full-time writer himself, Nicholas wrote articles and essays for notable publications including the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and National Public Radio. He soon found himself author of three published books and husband to fellow writer Amanda. Suddenly in need of health insurance and steadier income than novels and playwriting could provide, Nicholas sought a day job as a communications executive (or in his words, “a boring business writer”) at a media company called News Corporation (the then-parent company of Fox Entertainment Group, among other subsidiaries). But, he recalls, “My bosses soon saw through my Banana Republic pinstripe suit and asked me to move to Los Angeles and work on the more creative side of the company.” And we’re all thankful that they did!

Nicholas soon moved out to L.A. and worked at 20th Century Fox Television, developing comedy series including HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and MY NAME IS EARL. He then left Fox after a few years to partner with Judd Apatow and run Apatow Productions, overseeing the development of hugely fun movies: FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, STEP BROTHERS, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, GET HIM TO THE GREEK, and BRIDESMAIDS.

After the wild and somewhat unexpected success of BRIDESMAIDS, Nicholas departed from Apatow Productions to help friend (and former News Corp President / COO) Peter Chernin start his production company, Chernin Entertainment. Following that, Nicholas moved along to partner with Ben Stiller and run Red Hour Films together. In his six years there, Nicholas produced movies including ALEX STRANGELOVE, THE PACKAGE, PLUS ONE, and shows including IN THE DARK, ESCAPE AT DANNEMORA, and SEVERANCE.

“At which point,” Nicholas says with a smile, “I finally stopped partnering with other people, and finally re-embraced my love of travel and international cultures and languages, and started my own company, Invention Studios, three years ago. Invention has a simple but stunningly rare mandate to be a genuinely global creative company, one based in Los Angeles and working at the top levels of Hollywood but with executives, partners, and projects all over the world.” While he continues as an executive producer of SEVERANCE, Nicholas and Invention Studios are responsible for producing films and series by local creators in Italy, France, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, India, Lebanon, Iceland and beyond—in addition to American movies like recent film THELMA and upcoming movies IN MEMORIAM and THE SAVIORS.  Nicholas adds, “And having a blast!”

THELMA is Nicholas’s 2024 critical hit starring June Squibb as a witty and whip-smart 93-year-old grandmother who loses $10,000 to a con artist over the phone. So, she embarks on a journey to recover what was taken from her. “This was pure fun, pure joy,” Nicholas explains of the film, “and a movie that’s willing to talk in loving and honest ways about aging and family and life and challenge in ways that, in messy 2024, I think we were all craving. And it’s not part of a multibillion-dollar franchise owned by a major entertainment corporation. It’s just a movie.  And a lovely one. It was so heartening that something so small and mighty could become a hit.” This was June’s first-ever leading role after over seventy years in the business, and she even did all her own stunts!

When developing this film and other projects he works on, Nicholas doesn’t look for any kind of commercial viability; in fact, he feels that’s an overused metric. “It encourages financiers and studios to desperately seek a pre-proven financial model, and total fiscal assurance in advance, when in fact the greatest hits in the entertainment business have never come with either of those things,” Nicholas explains. Instead of looking for a script that reads like a success, he looks for two things in the writers, directors, and talent he works with: “One, an obsession with quality, as I’m a perfectionist nerd and only want to help craft the best and coolest possible stuff; and two, the bravery to be original.” He continues, “You can find one or the other a lot of the time–either quality or originality–which is always exciting, but often doesn’t lead to total winners. When you’re lucky enough to find both in the same person, you’ve got someone–and something –potentially explosive.”

Nicholas has found incredible partnership opportunities through his work abroad. “There is so much skilled and vibrant and courageous talent in places like Kenya, where we’re running a talent incubator program that’s birthing phenomenal projects as we speak,” Nicholas states, “and Nigeria and Ghana and Rwanda. And if you just treat those projects like you’d treat any high-end Hollywood movie or show in development—i.e., not as “charity” but as an urgent financial opportunity, and with genuine respect for the creator and a dogged determination to help them make their product brilliant and high-profile and successful—you’re going to make things that can actually change the world.”

A compelling story that can change the world is about one thing, in producer Nicholas’s eyes: “Crafting a story that is so distinctive, so sharply specific and bravely powerful, that it cuts through the haze and clutter of our lives and hits people in the gut.” In order to find even more of those types of powerful stories, Nicholas launched an organization called Craft Services during the heart of the pandemic. “I realized that no one could travel, and therefore emerging writers and writers [who are also] directors were a bit screwed,” Nicholas says, “without the ability to do in-person internships, shadow directors, be in real writers’ rooms, or any of the other things that generally launch Hollywood careers. So, I started a Saturday Zoom for new screenwriters who don’t live in Los Angeles, just to help people with their scripts and talk about their projects and careers and advise them however I could.” 

Those Zooms quickly became immensely popular, so Nicholas expanded them. He brought on special guest advisors like studio and streaming executives, producers, directors, actors, and agents—and that made the meet-ups even more popular! “And then I had the idea,” Nicholas declares. “If I’m going to help writers who don’t live in Los Angeles, maybe I could help people as far from Los Angeles as possible. So, I started calling film schools in other countries and asking if they had any recent graduates who are trying to be screenwriters and could use some support and more of a community. And, basically, they all said yes.”

Four years later, Craft Services has grown to over 900 members across the U.S. and in Mexico, Europe, the U.K., across Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Iceland, and more. They have two Zooms every weekend. Nicholas hired a screenwriting instructor to run three writing workshops a week so that members can improve their scripts and receive help and feedback from worldwide peers, with a website and Discord page. “And my company, Invention, is now producing around a dozen films and shows by Craft Services writers,” Nicholas exclaims. “[It’s] the ultimate worldwide hack, and a fast-track for these writers to viable Hollywood projects and careers, as well as a fabulous creative source for us. Hugely fun.”

For those aspiring writers and producers out there, first of all, consider joining Craft Services and taking advantage of the opportunity for global collaboration. Second, Nicholas offers the following words of wisdom: “Be bold, be welcoming of weirdos, plan to do about three times as many projects as anyone advises you to do, and for God’s sake, don’t take yourself too seriously. Producing, especially in rough-and-tumble 2025, entails falling on your face several times a week. Get used to it. In fact, even better. Enjoy it. Most jobs are a lot more boring.”