Atomic Features Launches Development Fund, Reveals Slate (EXCLUSIVE)
Atomic Features, the production company co-founded by Daniel Ragussis (“Imperium”) and Dennis Lee (“Fireflies in the Garden”), has launched a new development fund, having secured financing from a consortium of investors led by CXM Enterprises, Davis & Associates, and Pine Valley Investments.
Atomic’s development fund will employ the formal methodology devised by Ragussis as the founder of Notes for Execs, the industry’s first workshop to help executives give better notes to screenwriters.
Notes for Execs launched in 2019 and has included participants from Warner Brothers, Universal, Fox and Disney, as well as multiple management companies and agencies. Ragussis was also formerly Head of Development for Lucas Foster’s ANVL Entertainment.
The fund utilizes this approach to development, but applies it to director-driven projects, offering a new model to bring films to market. Each project from Atomic will start with bringing on board a director, offering Atomic’s portfolio of writers for the director to collaborate with, and then forming the creative team together. The process is designed to disrupt the traditional model, avoiding the hurdles faced by projects that start with a script and then need to find a director to engage with.
“My goal has always been to create a reliable, tried-and-true methodology for notes-giving and development, and to make it simultaneously writer-friendly while also empowering for execs,” said Ragussis, “and after successfully employing this method in both the classroom and real-world environments, we’re excited to make it the centerpiece of this new fund. I believe that combining this methodology with a focus on director-driven projects gives us a new and powerful path to market.”
“We’re thrilled about this upcoming slate of projects and the talented writers we’re working with, and the new way we’re practicing development,” said Lee. “With phrases like ‘development hell’ commonplace in our industry, we realized there needed to be a new way of doing business.”
The fund’s first three features set for development will be:
“Breed,” written by Marilyn Fu (“The Sisterhood of Night,” “Rosemead”), a Korean-American re-imagining of Rosemary’s Baby, to be directed by Lee.
“Black Tuesday,” a real-time disaster thriller about the 1929 stock market crash, co-written by R.F.I. Porto (“Blue Caprice,” “The Yellow Birds”) and Ragussis, who will also direct.
“The Oasis,” a dystopian thriller about a mysterious cult, written by Charlotte Rabate (“Stray Dolls,” “The Colony”), to be directed by Myriam Doumenq (“En Ville,” “Entre Deux”), which will star and be co-produced by Pauline Chalamet (“The Sex Lives of College Girls,” “The King of Staten Island”) and her Gummy Films banner.
The fund will be developing additional projects, to be announced later this year. The newly-announced feature films join the company’s existing slate, which includes “Rise Above,” written by Erica Tremblay (“Fancy Dance,” “Reservation Dogs”), about the sensational true-life story of Native-American basketball phenomenon Jaci McCormack, executive produced by Danny Glover and Lenny Wilkens; and “The Low End Theory,” a neo-noir crime thriller set in the Latinx and LGBTQ+ communities in Los Angeles, starring Sidney Flanigan and Sofia Yepes, slated for release later this year.
Marilyn Fu is represented by Jen Au and Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang. RFI Porto is represented by UTA and The Nord Group. Kristi Eddington is the legal representative for Charlotte Rabate. Emerson E. Bruns of Bruns, Brennan, Berry, Pikulin and Jacobs, PC (New York, Los Angeles, Nashville) are legal representatives for Daniel Ragussis, Dennis Lee and Atomic Features.
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