Robert Altman’s movie A Prairie Home Companion had names—his own as director, those of a venerated radio show and its host, and actors including Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Lily Tomlin, and Lindsay Lohan. But it didn’t have the dollars to get to its release last year. Enter John Stout, Fredrikson & Byron’s caped and bow-tied entertainment attorney, who matched backing from New York’s GreeneStreet Films and Bill Pohlad’s locally based River Road Entertainment with money from himself and about 20 other investors—almost all from Minnesota—to complete the roughly $10 million production budget. Stout has deals for about 70 mostly indie films to his credit (dating back to 1973’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull) and was a cofounder of the Minnesota Film and TV Board in 1982. Now with Prairie Home’s success, he’s raised the bar for Minnesota investment in national-release films. These days, Stout is finding investors for films by Twin Cities screenwriter-producer Shawn Otto (whose credits include House of Sand and Fog) and actor John Carroll Lynch (Fargo, Zodiac).
