Noah Centineo Launches Arkhum Productions With ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’

Noah Centineo is best known for his charm offensive on camera. Centineo broke out on the small screen in “The Fosters” before winning over a generation of girls as Peter Kavinsky in the “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” movies, then moving on to superhero fare in DC’s “Black Adam” series and recently appearing in the harrowing true story “Warfare.”

But Centineo’s starring role on Netflix’s espionage thriller “The Recruit” changed his trajectory. It was the actor’s first time working behind the scenes as an executive producer, and the experience proved formative.

“I learned how important it is to build a team around a project. To have the right individuals who have the same aligned vision,” Centineo tells Variety, flashing a broad smile over Zoom. It’s early Friday morning and he’s joined on the call by Enzo Marc, his partner at Arkhum Productions, the banner they formed in 2023.

The company name is a play on Arkham Asylum from the Batman comics — “I think Enzo and I are both lunatics,” Centineo quips — but there’s another meaning behind the name that the pair pledge to keep “mysterious.” They’re more forthcoming about their plans for the company as they aim to make a splash at the Tribeca Festival with their first feature, “Our Hero, Balthazar,” which debuts on Sunday.

Written and directed by Oscar Boyson, the film is a black comedy about a wealthy New York City teen named Balthazar “Balthy” Malone (Jaeden Martell), who makes dramatic social media videos pleading for stricter gun laws. He’s not particularly earnest about the cause; it’s a play to get attention, especially from a classmate who’s a passionate activist. When Balthy meets an online troll (Asa Butterfield) who says he’s planning a school shooting, he decides to go to Texas and talk him out of it. But when the teens meet — both infected by the plagues of violence and the attention economy — neither can anticipate how their interaction will ultimately combust.

Centineo has a small role in the film, playing Balthy’s “life coach,” but he came aboard the project as a producer first. Their mission was to help secure financing, help build the cast and assist on the ground if needed. “Wherever we could be of service,” Centineo says. “It was the exact kind of project that we felt we wanted to make under our banner.”

At Arkhum, Centineo explains, they’re working with a mandate to make movies that tell an innovative story with a layer of social commentary. For example, the first film he and Marc bonded over was “Wind River,” the 2017 neo-Western crime thriller from Taylor Sheridan, which put a spotlight on the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

“We want to make the movies that we want to see,” Marc says. “And we like seeing movies that say something. Not just mindless entertainment.” Centineo concurs: “Enzo and I believe that art is representative of the times that we’re living in and it’s the artist’s job to accurately show the world, the culture, the people in it and how it’s taking form.”

As such, they’ve been reading endless scripts — “We don’t read coverage,” Marc notes. “We actually spend hours reading everything” — to develop a diverse slate of projects that align with that mission.

“It’s awesome to see that the machine that Enzo and I have been building is working and starting to gain some traction and really get momentum,” Centineo says of their slate thus far. “That’s exciting.”

Marc adds: “After years of fielding and developing, it’s nice to see cameras finally rolling.”

What do you imagine it will be like to see “Arkhum Productions” on the big screen?

Noah Centineo: It’s certainly a very proud moment for us. I’m sure it’ll be exhilarating and encouraging. It’s been a long time coming.

Enzo Marc: It’s surreal to see the fruits of our labor in a finished form.

How did you come on board “Our Hero, Balthazar?”

Marc: We saw Oscar’s short film “Power Signal,” which was at Sundance, and it stood out to us. Then, coincidentally, shortly after, Oscar’s manager emailed us out of the blue and sent the script for “Balthazar.” We were sitting in the backyard, and I was reading in the corner, and I think I audibly screamed. I was like, “Oh my God, this script is crazy.”

What part made you scream?

Marc: The beginning — when the titular character is crying, and then immediately switches from sobbing into the camera to being this cold and calculating person. It freaked me out.

Centineo: He audibly yelped, and I went, “What happened?” He goes, “You have to read the script.”

Did you yelp too?

Centineo: I immediately pulled out my phone and opened it. We were sitting maybe 10 feet away from each other, both reading. He was maybe 10 pages ahead of me, so we just kept trading noises of excitement.

Marc: Shortly after that, we met Oscar in a restaurant in New York, and then we came on officially. So, it was almost a nine-month journey.

Centineo: It was so exciting. The films that Oscar has produced up to this point [“Uncut Gems,” “Good Time,” “Frances Ha”] are some of our favorites and are legendary, honestly. We really wanted to be able to be a part of his directorial debut.

The aim of your company is films that push boundaries and have an element of social commentary to them. When did you realize “Our Hero, Balthazar” fit that bill?

Centineo: That first page. Reading a young boy — a young man, but really a 16-year-old boy — having crocodile tears and having this obsession with virtue signaling was something that immediately connected with us. In today’s world, with social media and this disconnect that we have from each other in a world, where we want to be as active as we can politically and socially, sometimes that feels like opportunity for us to virtue signal and show versions of ourselves that we’d like to be, even if we’re not. That immediately resonated as something that was timely and contemporary and something that we wanted to be a part of. The ethos of the film connected very early with us, as far as it aligns with Arkhum.

How is your slate shaping up from here?

Marc: We’ve already got a couple of things in the can since “Balthazar.” Noah just finished shooting a movie in Ohio called “Union County.”

Centineo: It’s a co-production with Seaview Productions [Brad Becker-Parton and Faye Tsakas]. It’s an incredible film written and directed by Adam Meeks. This will be his first feature film; he did a short film by the same title [about a young man in rural Ohio navigating a drug court recovery program and the return of his ex-girlfriend]. Will Poulter stars, and I have a supporting role. When we read that, it was aligned with everything we wanted to do, so we wanted to do everything we could to get that over the finish line. I love the film so much.

Another upcoming film is “Meta,” an animated short about a lonely photographer who forms an unexpected connection with an A.I., in which Noah stars. What stood out about that project?

Centineo: I like following different artists on Instagram — animation artists and visual artists in different mediums. This kid, Bozo Balov, who lives in Croatia, was creating these short, animated videos that were in a style that was so unique; I just kept thinking, like, “God, this kid is good.” Every few weeks, I would send Enzo a video, like “Look how cool this is,” and he goes, “You gotta reach out to him and see if he wants to do a film.” Enzo is so clear, and I just don’t think in that way, like “Do the most obvious thing.” So, I reached out to Bozo, and he said, “We actually have a short film that I’m developing with Prime Render and Sacrebleu.” He sent it over to us, and we knew we had to be involved.

What about “Listen,” a thriller from writer-director Brian Birch, produced by Will Smith’s Westbrook?

Centineo: I was shooting the second season of “The Recruit” in South Korea, and Enzo and I decided to go out about a week and a half early and take some meetings. We got set up with Bound Entertainment — the incredible, legendary production company behind “Okja” and “Parasite” — and Samuel Ha. We sat with Sam and discussed our company for a couple of hours, and he pitched “Listen.” It was outside of the genre that we had ever considered, but it was very clear to us that we wanted to be involved.

What is the biggest challenge in finding financing and getting productions off the ground? What struggles did you run up against making movies like “Balthazar” and “Union County?”

Marc: Financing indie films is very difficult — it was especially difficult with “Balthazar” — but, in general, it’s a pretty big feat to get something funded. We have a lot of awesome actors involved in our films, and it can still be difficult.

With “Balthazar,” the subject matter is tricky. It’s dealing with the very real issue of gun violence while also having a hint of comedy. What did it take to get financiers involved?

Centineo: Finding the individuals who believe in the messaging of the film and have the money and the desire to champion those stories. It’s like matchmaking. Turning over every stone you can.

Indie films cost millions of dollars — unless you’re doing $50,000 or $300,000 projects, which is totally doable, but very, very hard. I mean, it’s all hard. The reason why it’s a struggle to go to a big financier and say, “Hey, we want to do this movie for $7 million and it’s an indie film, and it’s a first-time, up-and-coming filmmaker, and the subject matter is intense and niche,” is they’re going to go, “Well, how are we going to make money? How are we going to drive people to go see this movie on a mass scale?” As the filmmakers, we can say, “Well, because it’s important, it’s poignant, and we think that it actually will tap the zeitgeist.” But can you prove it, and how do you prove it? You have to believe, and that’s a question of taste. You’ve just got to find the right individuals who see merit.

What we’ve tried to do is find films and commit to doing them for under $5 million, and load them with really valuable actors that get it, love it, and are willing to die for the projects. Then, we advocate as hard as we can and find those partners who are willing to believe in the vision.

What do you see as the future for Arkhum?

Marc: I see a future where we’re the go-to home for the next generation of auteurs. They trust us. They know us. They come to us first. And we make films that make people think and hopefully consider all sorts of points of view.

Centineo: Ditto.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.