Feature fever hits vid's Cabin
The new entity, Cabin Fever Films, plans to release four films per year.
"Sioux City," a detective thriller that Lou Diamond Phillips will star in and direct, goes before cameras on Nov. 15. The $ 3 million budgeted pic will be Cabin Fever's first release, slated for late next year.
Budgets for the films are expected to be in the $ 3 million to $ 8 million range. The company already has six films in various stages of development and principal photography on its first feature will begin in two weeks.
"We had a self-imposed mandate to acquire as many rights to the various projects we were involved with as possible, so producing films ourselves was a way of fulfilling that goal," said Jeff Lawenda, senior vice president of Cabin Fever. Lawenda and manager of acquisitions Chris Walker will shepherd the acquisitions into development.
Talks with theatrical distributors are continuing, but Lawenda declined to identify those involved. He also emphasized the films will not be made as direct-to-video releases.
"We're not into just knocking out movies, or doing a deal a minute," said Lawenda. "We're going to be very selective."
Lawenda said the type of films he and Walker will greenlight are those with strong international appeal and trade on the firm's interest in Americana. The exec pointed to the firm's success with Western themes, most notably the homevid appeal of "Lonesome Dove"-- the high-rated CBS miniseries -- as indicative of where the production company's interests lean.
"We'll treat each project individually. Something like "A River Runs Through It," would also be of interest," Lawenda said, referring to the film's niche appeal and modest production cost.
According to industry sources, the success of "Dove" has provided Cabin Fever with a healthy financial base from which to draw.
"At sales of close to 2 million units, they must have banked at least $ 65 million from it," one outsider observer familiar with the firm surmised.
The second installment of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" franchise, "The Luck Of The Draw: The Gambler Returns" has also done well for the firm's homevid arm, which was launched in 1988. A handful of sell-through titles and "The Man Upstairs," the telefilm starring Katherine Hepburn and Ryan O'Neal, have also contributed to Cabin Fever's coffers.
Lawenda confirms the bulk of financing will come from both foreign presales and the exploitation of a film's numerous ancillary rights, such as TV, homevideo, music and pay-per-view.
Other films in development beyond "Sioux City" include the Jim Byrnes ("Gunsmoke,""The Sacketts") scripted "Belle Starr," based on the female outlaw, and "The Man Who Rode Midnight," based on the book of the same name by Elmer Kelton.
