Warner Bros. and RatPac Entertainment have launched a new film fund to finance Chinese-language movies. Brett Ratner and James Packer’s RatPac has a standing deal with Warner Bros. to co-finance the majority of the films in the studio’s slate. “The exciting thing is that China will be the No. 1 movie market in the world soon,” Ratner commented in an interview with THR. “We would like to be a big part of that.” Since 2013, WB and RatPac’s parent company, Time Warner, has been a co-investor in a Chinese media fund set up by China Media Capital (CMC), the state-backed investment group headed by Li Ruigang, former head of Shanghai Media Group.
Paramount Pictures and the UK’s first dedicated high-end CG feature animation studio, Locksmith Animation have signed an arrangement to co-develop and co-produce a series of animated projects for the studio. The company was founded by writer/director Sarah Smith known for Arthur Christmas and Julie Lockhart who worked on Shaun The Sheep Movie. Under the deal, Paramount and Locksmith are progressing three current properties, which Locksmith has been developing since its inception in 2014, with plans to head into production the next year and to release the first film in 2020. They will also develop other projects together over time to create a pipeline of releases.
Viola Davis has inked an overall deal with ABC Studios. She currently stars in How to Get Away with Murder, which makes it home at the studio. Davis and her partner Julius Tennon will develop projects for broadcast, cable, and streaming services through their production company, JuVee Productions, for ABC Studios and its cable/digital division ABC Signature. Also, JuVee has hired Andrew Wang as their new Head of Television Development and Production. He was previously Bravo, where he was VP and head of Scripted Television Development and Production.
STX Entertainment has signed multi-year production deals with multimedia production company INvelop Entertainment, and Ryan Holcomb’s Tower 2 Productions. Brant Pinvidic launched INvelop to focus on unscripted television and feature length documentary films. Holcomb was previously the SVP of Development and Production at Lionsgate TV before launching Tower 2 Productions.
Conde Nast Entertainment is launching three new incubator programs focused at discovering and developing the next generation of digital video storytellers. The first incubator, is a partnership with Indigenous Media and filmmakers Jon Avnet, Rodrigo Garcia and Jake Avnet. Their project will follow female filmmakers through social videos. Josh Hutcherson and Michelle Hutcherson’s Turkeyfoot Productions are behind the second incubator entitled Big Script, in partnership with Indigenous Media and it will pair young filmmakers with the industry’s hottest scripts and scales them down into short films. The third incubator is a Creators in Residence program for today’s millennial filmmakers.
A+E Networks has inked an international distribution deal with Pulse Films and East Entertainment and will be the worldwide distributor for their format and unscripted TV output. Pulse Films is a multi-disciplinary studio that launched East in 2015, led by Nathan Eastwood, producer of The Cube and creator of E4’s Bad Robots. The two companies focus on contemporary documentaries, formats and factual series. Vice Media has a majority stake in Pulse, but it remains independently run by co-CEOS and founders Thomas Benski and Marisa Clifford.
Vice Media and ESPN are joining forces on a sports programming deal where Vice Sports will produce new original series to air exclusively in ESPN properties. Select films from ESPN’s documentary series 30 for 30 will air on cable network Viceland. Additionally, Vice and ESPN are developing a short-form animated series. The two companies commented that original shows in development “will take audiences around the world to look at dominant athletes, fascinating characters and championship events that reside outside the mainstream.”
Global studio Entertainment One (eOne) has signed a first-look deal for unscripted programming with award-winning show creators Cleve Keller and Dave Noll under their Keller/Noll banner. Keller and Noll will develop and produce original unscripted programming with eOne. Keller/Noll’s numerous formats have included: Food Network’s Chopped, GSN’s Winsanity!, AMC’s FilmFakers, Bravo’s Rocco’s Dinner Party; HGTV’s Beat the House and the global game shows Momentum, Unbeatable as well as You Vs., which marked the first game show in history of Japanese television to be created outside Japan.
Jackie De Crinis is leaving her post as EVP of Original Programming at USA Network and will segue into an overall deal with Universal Cable Productions. Under the deal, will serve as an executive producer on the USA/UCP 10-episode straight-to-series drama Eyewitness, which starts production this week, and will develop new projects for the studio. De Crinis previously developed hits such as Burn Notice, Royal Pains, White Collar, Covert Affairs and Monk.
Media studio and MCN Studio71 has inked a multi-picture distribution deal with Paramount’s Worldwide Television Licensing & Distribution and Acquisitions division for films. The first project under the deal is Be Somebody, the Joshua Caldwell-helmed film with Vine star Matthew Espinosa, releasing in select theaters and digital and VOD platforms June 10.