Matt Smith and Dan Gedman attended the same high school in Kansas City and became best friends after attending the same fraternity at the University of Kansas.
“We both loved movies,” Gedman says. “We went to see “Hoop Dreams” together. Lawrence had a great arts theater that played “Fargo” and “Pulp Fiction.” We ended up playing a lot less pickup basketball and seeing a lot more movies than the people we lived with.
Decades later, Smith and Gedman are trading the Kansas prairie for the funky fun of Austin, Texas, where the producing partners premiered not one, but two films at this year’s SXSW. “Savior” is a comedy-thriller about a couple (Adam Scott, Daniel Deadwyler) who become suspicious of a Middle Eastern brother and sister (Theo Rossi, Nazanin Boniadi) who rent a guesthouse. Smith and Gedman also created “Wishful Thinking,” a story about a couple in Portland, Oregon (Maya Hawke, Lewis Pullman). Marital problems may be causing global collapse. The quirky features are the first two projects of Highway 10, a company launched by the business partners in 2024.
“These films represent the last two years of our work, so it’s both exciting and terrifying to have them shown in quick succession,” Smith says. “They represent what we’re looking for as a company. We’re genre agnostic, but we want movies with big central hooks and big ideas. We make small independent films with big stakes.”
Mr. Smith, a producer whose credits include MGM’s musical remake of “Valley Girl” and two films in the “Step Up” series, and Mr. Gedman, a former music video director for Kendrick Lamar and Tech N9ne, had just finished raising money to open Highway 10 when they saw Kevin Hamedani and Travis Betts’ script for “Saviour.”
“It jumped right off the page,” Gedman says.
For Smith, the film was exactly the kind of mashup he had always wanted to make.
“It was kind of a blend of all these sensibilities: Tarantino and PTA, who got us into movies, and Spielberg, who we grew up watching,” he says. “But it also raises sadly relevant questions about immigration and how foreigners are treated in this country.”
“Savior” was filmed in Altadena and was completed just before last year’s Los Angeles wildfires. In fact, the owners of the house where Scott and the Deadwyler characters live had to use footage from the film to collect insurance money when their guesthouse was destroyed in a fire.
“Wishful Thinking” was filmed in 2025 in Portland, Oregon. The film went through a whirlwind post-production and the final cut was completed just days before SXSW. Gedman and Smith were drawn to the project, which was written and directed by Graham Parks.
“Graham and Lewis are good friends, so he wrote this song to showcase Lewis’ talent, and Maya was our first choice and she agreed to it almost immediately, so the stars aligned,” says Smith.
“It’s based on great performances by great actors who tell relatable stories,” Gedman says.
Highway 10 takes its name from the road that connects Kansas City and the University of Kansas, where Gedman and Smith formed their cinematic bond. The two SXSW premieres feel like the culmination of a long journey, but Highway 10 hopes this is just a taste of what’s to come. The two hope to film “When a Stranger Venmos,” a thriller about a young woman in the internet age who is given the chance to complete outlandish challenges for money. There are several other projects under consideration.
“Dan and I want people to have a fun night at the movie theater,” says Smith. “That’s what we’re focused on providing.”
