Particular Crowd, MarVista Set 10-Plus Movies a Year Partnership (EXCLUSIVE)
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MIAMI — Particular Crowd, the big new film banner of Warner Media’s Turner Latin America, and MarVista Entertainment, one of the world’s biggest and ambitious of independent entertainment studios, have announced a multi-year production slate deal.
As part of the deal, Particular Crowd and MarVista will target production of 10-plus films per year, focusing on elevated movie content featuring unique and edgier stories and breakthrough talent, with the potential to crossover to the theatrical space, the partners announced in a written statement Thursday.
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First up in the deal, and now in production, are psychological thriller “Sightless,” written and directed by Cooper Karl; modern-day Western “Two Deaths of Henry Baker,” directed by Felipe Mucci; “Tow, “ directed by Alex Merkin (“No Escape Room”); and “Hunter Hunter,” from Shawn Linden.
Turner and MarVista will jointly oversee development and production, and MarVista will oversee global distribution of these films outside Latin America.
Though Particular Crowd was just officially launched Wednesday at Miami’s NATPE conference, in one of its biggest industry news this year, the alliance represents a meeting of like minds.
Both based out of Los Angeles, the partners have remarkable volume, MarVista adding approximately 60 new movies per year to its distribution pipeline, Particular Crowd hitting the ground running with 30 completed films, and 60 more titles scheduled for delivery in 2020. These will be English-language films often within the most popular genres: Comedy, romantic comedies, horror, thriller, teen, and family, just as MarVista, founded in 2003 and producing, acquiring and distributing film and television content worldwide, has carved out a reputation for genre and thrillers.
But both aspire to smart genre, MarVista inking, say, with Elijah Wood’s Company X/Spectrevision on Sundance title “Bitch,” where a woman turns dog, and suicide comedy, seen at Tribeca, “7 Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss by Passing Through the Gateway Chosen by the Holy Storsh.”
Particular Crowd likewise aims for a wide variety of outlets, including, on select titles, theatrical and festival, not just straight-to-pay TV on Turner Latin America’s Space and TNT services.The alliance, its partners said in a written statement Thursday, will focus “on elevated movie content featuring unique and edgier stories and breakthrough talent, with the potential to crossover to the theatrical space.”
Both companies, moreover, also seek to bring on new talent, a key to success in the new TV landscape.
“We believe that with this agreement we’ll be providing opportunities for new storytelling voices across all disciplines -writing, directing, acting and producing-, as talent discovery is a pillar of the initiative,” said Tomás Yankelevich, EVP & chief content officer, General Entertainment, Turner Latin America. He continued: “We want to build a sustainable model for mainstream independent films to meet viewer appetite for quality movies when and where they want to consume their content”.
“With MarVista’s studio platform infrastructure and ability to produce high-quality content at scale, we see this partnership with Particular Crowd as a significant opportunity to apply our best practices to the independent film landscape,” said Fernando Szew, CEO, MarVista.
“Developing new talent and telling diverse stories are sources of pride at our company and at the heart of our business,” he added.
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