‘Landline’ & Indie Distribution’s Changing Tides
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‘Landline’ & Indie Distribution’s Changing Tides

When it comes to mounting quintessential auterish independent films on the big screen today, chances are that OddLot Entertainment is there. The company co-founded by Gigi Pritzker has produced and co-financed such titles as this year’s awards season contender Hell or High Water, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and this year’s Sundance entry Landline from Obvious Child filmmaker Gillian Robespierre.

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Gigi Pritzker & Clint Kisker Rename Company MWM, Pulling All Brands Under One Umbrella In New Company Strategy
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Gigi Pritzker & Clint Kisker Rename Company MWM, Pulling All Brands Under One Umbrella In New Company Strategy

Madison Wells Media has rebranded and brought all divisions under a new company name MWM, based in Century City. Part of the rebrand includes renamed divisions including MWM Studios (formerly OddLot Entertainment), MWM Immersive (formerly Reality One) and MWM Live (formerly Relevant Theatricals) as part of a new strategy to streamline operations to orient their 22 employees as one group. The management strategy is one that tech companies have also implemented in order to maximize flexibility when working across multiple platforms. The model is considered the most efficient for both employees and content providers.

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Tech Meets Storytelling: How Two Hollywood Players Are Marrying Movies, Theater, & VR
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Tech Meets Storytelling: How Two Hollywood Players Are Marrying Movies, Theater, & VR

Favreau started developing Gnomes & Goblins with Jones and Jake Rowell, who directed theBlue. In the game, the player enters a magical forest, alight with fireflies and glowing candles, where tiny gnomes cautiously emerge from behind trees to interact–as they grow more comfortable with the player, they become more emboldened and start picking up and tossing fallen peaches (which the player can also pick up). Madison Wells became involved in the project through its partnership with Wevr, which came about after Kisker saw theBlue. “My first thought was, who did this? I need to find the people who did this because if they can do this with this circumstance then what else can they do?”

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Sony Pictures Inks Virtual Reality Deal With Reality One
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Sony Pictures Inks Virtual Reality Deal With Reality One

“Sony Pictures will expand our efforts to develop new audiences and new revenue from our studio’s content, leverage longstanding relationships with some of the best creative minds in the business and explore exciting opportunities for high-quality, interactive storytelling in this new medium,” Jake Zim, senior VP, virtual reality at Sony Pictures, said Tuesday in a statement about the deal.

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Paramount’s ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ brilliantly offers escape paired with poignancy
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Paramount’s ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ brilliantly offers escape paired with poignancy

Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins sing, “We ain’t gonna study war no more. We ain’t gonna study war no more. We ain’t gonna study war no more…” The Negro spiritual dating to the Civil War, often called “Down By the Riverside,” rings through Aurora’s magnificent historical edifice, seemingly imploring the immensely flawed world leadership who threaten any hope for peace.

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Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter Songs to Anchor New NYC Musical
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Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter Songs to Anchor New NYC Musical

Red Roses, Green Gold is set in 1920s Maryland and “tells the fantastical and comedic story of Jackson Jones and his family of swindlers as they gamble their way to love and riches.” Garcia’s collaborations with lyricist Robert Hunter will comprise the bulk of the show’s music, though it will also features contributions from the late guitarist’s Grateful Dead cohorts Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, as well as Hunter’s longtime collaborator, Greg Anton.

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Producer Gigi Pritzker on ‘Genius,’ her first foray into TV
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Producer Gigi Pritzker on ‘Genius,’ her first foray into TV

Gigi Pritzker didn’t plunge headlong into the movie business — her original life plan was to run an NGO in Nepal. An accidental journey to film school set her on a path to producing lots of films, including the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water. But she’d never done television until Genius, on the life of Albert Einstein, demanded to be made as a series. The first season of the National Geographic anthology series is now up for 10 Emmys. 

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