Overseas sensation
Flush FilmGroup raises profile with Kilik, coin
CANNES -- Overseas FilmGroup, flush with fresh cash and new management, is well on its way to becoming a major player on the New York film front, signing a first-look deal with veteran producer Jon Kilik and his Gotham-based Grandview Pictures.
Kilik is setting up shop in a renovated space in the West Village that will function as Grandview’s home and Overseas FilmGroup’s New York quarters. He’ll be considering a range of indie and studio projects and said he’s happy to be teamed up with Overseas, which will secure financing and handle domestic and international distribution on joint projects.
Kilik’s credits include “Dead Man Walking,” “Pleasantville,” “A Bronx Tale” and 10 films with Spike Lee, including “Do the Right Thing” and the upcoming “Bamboozled.”
Grandview’s current slate features “Before Night Falls,” directed by artist Julian Schnabel. Based on the autobiography of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, pic features cameos by Johnny Depp and Sean Penn. It opens this fall. Kilik and Schnabel previously partnered on “Basquiat.”
Other upcoming pics include “In the Summer of Crazy Horse,” directed by Chris Eyre (“Smoke Signals”) based on a novel about jailed American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, and “Joe Glory,” docu filmmaker Barbara Kopple’s first foray into narrative film, which is set during the civil rights riot generated by Paul Robeson’s 1949 concert in Peekskill, N.Y.
Overseas, which acquires, finances, packages and distributes indie films, has recently jumped to a new level in the industry. Perennially cash-strapped, it has just secured $47 million in new capital, including a $30 million, five-year revolving credit facility from Chase Securities and a $17 million cash infusion from Rosemary Street, which will own nearly 60% of the publicly traded company. Rosemary prexy Chris Cooney is Overseas FilmGroup’s CEO and co-chairman, along with Overseas’ Robbie Little.Overseas, which put together such pics as “Waking Ned Devine” and Julie Taymor’s “Titus,” will now be able to finance greater production and acquisition of theatrical, video and TV pics as well as to refinance its debt. Overseas will also create a new commercials division.
Cooney is also a co-owner of EUE Screen Gems, one of the largest commercials production operations on the East Coast. His facilities include the former De Laurentiis Studios in Wilmington, N.C., and studio facilities in New York that are home to the long-running soap “Guiding Light.”
