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With one of the highest-grossing horrors of the year under his belt, Ryan Coogler<\/a> recently revealed how he found inspiration in a Disney Channel Original Movie<\/a> (DCOM).<\/p>\n During his Sinners<\/a><\/em> panel on Saturday at Deadline Contenders Film, the writer and director noted that 2001\u2019s The Luck of the Irish<\/em> stoked his fascination with Irish culture\u2019s similarities to Black culture, inspiring the villainous Remmick (Jack O\u2019Connell<\/a>) in his Mississippi Delta-set vampire film.<\/p>\n More from Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThat was our first introduction to some of the similarities in Irish folk music to, basically, our music,\u201d he explained to Deadline\u2019s Mike Fleming Jr. \u201cThere was a small Irish community in The Bay, and we would talk about it. That movie was kind of a touchpoint for us to jump off of, crazy enough. We\u2019ve been fascinated with that culture in my family.\u201d<\/p>\n Directed by Paul Hoen from a script by Andrew Price and Mark Edward Edens, The Luck of the Irish<\/em> follows high school basketball star Kyle O\u2019Reilly Johnson (Ryan Merriman), reluctant to embrace his Irish heritage, as he has to reclaim his family\u2019s lucky gold coin from an evil leprechaun (Timothy Omundsun), or else they\u2019ll transform into leprechauns themselves.<\/p>\n As a Contenders audience member noted that she worked on the Disney movie, Coogler said \u201cGod bless you,\u201d noting: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of fans of you in Oakland, California, right now. We used to watch that movie like crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n In Sinners<\/em>, twin brothers Stack and Smoke (Michael B. Jordan) return to their Mississippi hometown in 1932 to open a juke joint, which quickly becomes a hunting ground for O\u2019Connell\u2019s Remmick.<\/p>\n \u201cThe film was a great opportunity,\u201d said Coogler of the film. \u201cIt was also a big shoutout to Bram Stoker, who was Irish, and kind of gave us the first context around the concept of a vampire in popular culture. So, it just made a lot of sense to explore the character that way.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not Satan, but we saw him as a pre-colonial Irishman who had this massive backstory that we would kind of hint at and peel back like an onion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n