Kramer, Gondas partner to form Lexington Group
Entertainment co. to work with tv, film, legit, and online projects
Kramer is president of the new shingle, which plans to make about four feature films a year, invest in other films and produce TV shows and legit productions. Company is also partnered in an Internet content venture and owns a digital post-production facility.
The Gondas have been involved in film before — they backed John Sayles’ “Men With Guns” and the Imax pic “Siegfried and Roy: The Magic Box” — but the formation of Lexington Entertainment presages a much-expanded commitment, the principals said. Kelly Gonda will run the entertainment company along with Kramer.
“They’ve always had disparate elements and it’s never been tied together under one person and one roof,” Kramer said. “The plan is to coordinate these wonderfully diverse assets and make them make sense and feed one another.”
The company already has “A Time for Dancing,” a drama about teenage girls and their love for dance, shooting with director Peter Gilbert (“Hoop Dreams,” “All the Rage”) at the helm. That pic falls under the company’s East of Doheny label, which plans to focus on family fare.
Next up is a film version of famed British stage director Trevor Nunn’s much-lauded staging of “The Merchant of Venice,” to be shot in association with theater producer Richard Price and the BBC. That’s set to be lensed next month in London.
Company plans to produce films with budgets up to $10 million. A financing arm will look for investment opportunities in other films as well. No distribution alliances have been struck.
In the legit arena, the company will expand on the activities of Kelly Gonda, who co-produced “Cressida,” currently on the London stage.
Kramer joined prolific TV producer-writer Kelley’s company in 1994. While there, he produced such hits as “Ally McBeal,” “The Practice” and “Chicago Hope,” and won a host of awards, including three Emmys and three Golden Globes. Before working with Kelley, Kramer was an exec at 20th Century Fox TV, an independent TV producer, theater producer and actor.
Lou Gonda is owner and president of Lexington Commercial Holdings, a holding company with interests in commercial real estate among other companies. He was a founder and exec until 1990 of Intl. Lease Finance Corp., the largest lessor of commercial aircraft to airlines.
