Ryan Coogler’s Wakanda Forever follow-up has cemented the director as a rare commercial auteur. Here’s how Sinners might defy cinema’s IP logic.

The synopsis of Sinners – Ryan Coogler’s first entirely original movie, in UK cinemas this weekend – sounds like an odd fit for a flagship Imax release.

Set in the heart of rural Mississippi in 1932, the film follows ex-military gangsters the Smokestack twins (both played by Michael B. Jordan) on a mission to convert their hometown’s old sawmill into a Juke joint. What starts as a promising night of booze, boogying and bonking is soon ruined by the arrival of three sinister folk singers with an aversion to garlic – cue an industrial quantity of fake blood and more stake-based action than Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. It’s the stuff b-movie horror is made of.

But Sinners in its execution is far from your average b-movie. Shot...