Before he casts actors in his movies, producer Dallas Sonnier puts them through what he calls “the Louisiana cousins test.”

These cousins of his are schoolteachers, HVAC installers, construction workers—just the kind of audience he thinks Hollywood has unwisely left behind.

“If I text them the name of, let’s say, Timothée Chalamet, they don’t know who the hell he is,” Mr. Sonnier says. “They haven’t seen ‘Lady Bird,’ and they certainly haven’t seen ‘Call Me By Your Name.’ But if I text them Vince Vaughn, Kurt Russell, Don Johnson? They go f—ing crazy!”

His October release, “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” passed the test. Mr. Vaughn portrayed an out-of-work mechanic who killed Mexican drug dealers to protect his wife from a forced abortion. It had a tiny theatrical release with little media coverage, but its DVDs were a hit at Walmart as soon as they hit the shelves.

Mr. Sonnier’s company, Cinestate , which made “Brawl,” is backed by an anonymous Texas oil heiress, he says, to produce “populist entertainment.”