On Location: 'Killing Season' for De Niro, Travolta in Georgia

Robert De Niro and John Travolta are about to do battle in the Appalachian Mountains, further evidence of Georgia's rising star in film production.

The veteran actors will head to the North Georgia mountains next week to begin filming "Killing Season," in which De Niro plays an American military veteran living in a remote cabin in the woods and Travolta stars as a vengeful former Serbian soldier disguised as a tourist.

"Killing Season" producer Millennium Films scours the globe for film tax credits, shooting films in Israel, South Africa, Canada and Bulgaria, where its sister company Nu Image owns Nu Boyana Film Studios, a 75-acre former communist-era studio it acquired and rebuilt in 2006. In the U.S., the company normally goes to Louisiana, where it owns a 70,000-square-foot studio.

This time it has opted for the Peach State. “We looked at Connecticut and at Louisiana, but Georgia has the mountains and the rebate,” said Millennium Chief Executive Avi Arad.

After surviving a proposed cut last year, Georgia’s film incentive — which was ramped up in 2008 from a 20% to a 30% transferable tax credit on in-state production expenses — continues to establish the Southern state as a competitor to others in the region like Louisiana and North Carolina, whose own lucrative programs have designated them as go-to destinations for film and television productions looking to cut costs. 

Georgia's film tax credit drew a record 126 movie and television productions, including Paramount Pictures' “Footloose” remake and AMC’s “The Walking Dead” in fiscal 2011 — measured from July 2010 to June 2011 — up from 94 the previous year and 48 in 2007.

The boom led EUE/Screen Gems to announce an expansion to its 33-acre studio complex in Atlanta and a 71% increase to the economic impact — from $1.4 billion in fiscal 2010 to $2.4 billion in fiscal 2011 — from all production in Georgia, according to the state.

“It [2011] has been a windfall of activity,” said Lee Thomas, director of the Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office. “Every year, it gets stronger.”

RELATED:

Big-budget movies find low-cost haven in Bulgaria

How I Made It: Movie producer and financier Avi Lerner

Atlanta studio opens as filming in Georgia booms

— Dima Alzayat

Photo: Tallulah Gorge State Park in Rabun County, Ga. Credit: Georgia Department of Economic Development

On Location: 'Bourne Legacy' makes a stop in the Philippines

The hit franchise known for trotting around the globe, from France and Italy to India and Morocco, is adding a new location to its roster: the Philippines.  Universal Pictures' “The Bourne Legacy,” the fourth movie based on the Robert Ludlum novels, will start filming in Manila, the country’s capital, this week.

Scheduled to be released in theaters Aug. 3, the latest installment in the spy series was written and is being directed by Tony Gilroy -- who penned the first three films -– and will be the first without Matt Damon playing the title role. Bourne is not a character in the new movie. Jeremy Renner, instead, will portray an agent in the same line of business as Bourne, with Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton co-starring.

The production, which has a budget of more than $100 million, will spend about 45 days in the Philippines. Scenes have already been shot in New York and Alberta, Canada, since filming began last September. 

Although a few smaller-budget independent movies, including John Sayles’ 2000 “Amigo,” have been made in the Southeast Asian country, the fourth “Bourne” will be the biggest Hollywood production to be shot there since the late 1970s and 1980s. Several classic war films, among them Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 “Apocalypse Now” and Oliver Stone’s 1986 “Platoon” and his 1989 “Born on the Fourth of July," used the Philippines as a stand-in for Vietnam.

Manila has a history of being used to portray other cities: It served as Jakarta in Peter Weir’s 1982 drama “The Year of Living Dangerously,” Bangkok in Jonathan Kaplan’s 1999 thriller “Brokedown Palace,” and Panama City in Showtime’s 2000 biopic “Noriega: God’s Favorite.” 

“Legacy,” however, will be the first notable Hollywood movie to represent the capital as itself. Action scenes including a helicopter hovering above the financial district and a long car chase through a major thoroughfare are to be shot in the city, according to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority. The production will also film in Palawan, an island province known for its pristine beaches and tropical rain forests.

Universal declined to comment on the project, but officials in the Philippines are hoping "Bourne" will play a vital role in elevating the country's profile in Hollywood. "This will generate great interest in our country since [it demonstrates] we can provide the facilities for such big productions,” the Film Development Council of the Philippines said in a statement.

Though there are no film incentives available in the Philippines, the Film Development Council touts its cheap transportation, accommodations and labor, as well as widespread fluency in English as factors that can make the country more attractive to Hollywood filmmakers. “It is also a melting pot culture where locations can be depicted as Asian, Hispanic or prewar American,” the council said.

RELATED:

On Location: L.A. feature production edges up in 2011 while TV dips

On Location: Inclusion Films opens doors in Hollywood

On Location: Dante Ferretti re-creates Paris in 'Hugo'

-- Dima Alzayat

Photo: Matt Damon and Dan Bradley on the set of "The Bourne Ultimatum." Credit: Abbot Genser/Universal Pictures.

 

Judge awards $12 million in damages in 'Crash' lawsuit

A Los Angeles judge has found various companies tied to "Crash" producer Bob Yari liable for about $12 million in damages payable to director Paul Haggis, star Brendan Fraser, co-writer Bobby Moresco and producer Mark Harris.

The ruling by Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Buckley follows a decision this summer in which he supported allegations from the plaintiffs that Yari improperly withheld money owed to them from the 2005 movie that won three Academy Awards, including best picture.

"Defendants breached the contract with the plaintiffs by diverting funds to third parties; adopting bogus contractual interpretations; refusing to correct accounting errors in a timely fashion; adopting inappropriate accounting procedures that were contrary to industry standards; and, in the final analysis, using all of these to avoid paying plaintiffs money due under the contracts," Buckley wrote in his ruling.

Buckley said Yari used his companies to improperly deduct costs from the film, reducing the revenue that could be shared by Haggis, Moresco, Fraser, and Harris. The improper deductions, Buckley said, included $1,300 for Yari's personal tickets to the Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards, an $8,300 personal ad in Variety and $40,000 to sponsor the Independent Spirit Awards and the IFP Gotham Awards.

Attorney Behzad Nahai, who represents Persik Productions, also known as Bob Yari Productions, said:  "We obviously and respectfully disagree with the decision. The effect of this decision is that the person who took the risk and financed and proceeded with the making of this movie, is in essence being penalized by this court."

The 2007 lawsuit is the latest of several Yari has been involved in over "Crash." Fellow producers Cathy Schulman and Tom Nunan sued Yari in 2006 for allegedly withholding money from them. That case was delayed in 2010 after Yari's company, named as a defendant, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. And late last year, actor Matt Dillon sued defendants Yari and his companies, saying he was owed more than $100,000 for his work on "Crash." That case is pending.

RELATED:

Judge rules for Paul Haggis, Brendan Fraser in 'Crash' lawsuit

'Crash' case takes bad turn for Yari

Court compels Yari Film Group's releasing division into Chapter 11

— Richard Verrier

Photo: Writers Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis with their Oscar for original sceenplay for "Crash" at the 78th annual Academy Awards, March 5, 2006. Credit: Los Angeles Times

On Location: Occupy L.A. upstages film production at City Hall

 

Many in Hollywood are sympathetic to the goals of Occupy L.A. But the protesters are upstaging one of the industry's most popular shoot locations.

With its distinctive concrete tower and Greco-inspired architecture, City Hall has long been a favorite of location managers as an iconic symbol of Los Angeles and a stand-in for everything from Congress to courtrooms of New York in numerous movies, television shows and commercials.

In the last two months, however, film production around the 32-floor landmark building has fallen off sharply, largely because its 1.7-acre lawn has become a base camp for an entirely different kind of production.

Since Oct. 1, Occupy L.A. protesters have been inhabiting a sprawling tent city as part of a nationwide campaign to draw attention to economic inequalities in the country.

“Most [film crews] are avoiding City Hall at this point,’’ said Paul Audley, president of FilmL.A., the city’s film permitting group. “They can’t even get their parking vehicles in the area and it would be very difficult to run cable with that many people there.”

And there are no signs that protesters are going to vacate any time soon, despite announced plans by the city to evict them. On Monday, protesters filed a federal lawsuit to bar police from closing the camp, which surrounds the city block between Main and Temple and First and Spring streets.

Over the last eight weeks, there were only nine film shoots in the City Hall area, about half the number that occurred during the same time a year ago, according to FilmL.A.

Those included shoots for the Warner Bros. forthcoming release “Gangster Squad,” which filmed in the mayor’s press room in City Hall just when the protest began in early October; a McDonald’s commercial; and the TNT legal comedy series “Franklin & Bash.” A USC student also shot a movie on the site about the protests called “Occupy Together.”

The falloff has contributed to an overall decline in location filming this quarter. Shooting on city streets and unincorporated areas of the county has been down at about 10% over the last two months compared to the same time a year ago, mainly due to the migration of movies and TV shows to other states and a cutback in location filming by cost-conscious producers.

Still, no one in the Hollywood community is complaining about the protests, at least not publicly. “Everybody has been very tolerant of it,’’ Audley said. “They’re just trying to go with the flow and are seeking out other locations.”

The only production currently scheduled to shoot at City Hall in the near future is “Gangster Squad,” starring Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Sean Penn, which plans to film an additional scene on the premises.

A fixture on the municipal landscape since it was completed in 1928, City Hall has appeared in scores of classic TV shows such as “Dragnet” and “Perry Mason” as well as the crime movie “L.A. Confidential” and science fiction thriller “Escape from L.A.,” whose visual effects wizardry made the building look like it had collapsed and the city was in ruins.

More recently, City Hall has been featured in recent movies as “Rampart” and “Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” based on the Ayn Rand novel.  A number of local TV series also have used the property, including the sci-fi series “Torchwood” and the short-lived ABC legal drama “The Whole Truth.” The now defunct TV series filmed an elaborate scene last year on Spring Street in front of City Hall, which was made to look like the New York City Criminal Court in Manhattan.

RELATED:

On Location: L.A. movie palaces still matter to film industry

On Location: Book publishers borrowing a page from Hollywood

On Location: 'Sons of Anarchy' spreads mayhem across L.A.

--Richard Verrier

Photo: Film shoot in front of Los Angeles City Hall for the ABC TV superhero series "No Ordinary Family." Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times.

 

Where the cameras roll

Sample of neighborhoods with permitted TV, film and commercial shoots scheduled this week. Permits are subject to last-minute changes. Sources: FilmL.A. Inc., cities of Beverly Hills, Santa Clarita and Pasadena. Thomas Suh Lauder / Los Angeles Times

On Location: New Santa Fe Studios beckons filmmakers

A longstanding artists community and celebrity vacation destination, Santa Fe has a new rising star -- one it hopes will help the state regain its footing as a leading production destination for filmmakers.

This week, Santa Fe Studios, a nearly $30-million production facility in the southeast part of the mountain town, will open for business. Built in line with the city’s traditional pueblo architectural style, the 65-acre studio includes two 19,275-square-foot soundstages with lush offices and dressing rooms, access to electric cars and ultra-high-speed broadband technology.

Financed partly by a $10-million economic development grant from the state, the facility will be New Mexico’s fifth studio and the second largest after Albuquerque Studios, which has eight soundstages and has been home to dozens of feature film and television productions including Marvel Studios’ “The Avengers” and four seasons of AMC’s “Breaking Bad.”

While the investment in a new studio less than 80 miles from the Albuquerque appears to be a gamble, its owners -- longtime producing and directing brothers Lance and Conrad Hool, along with Lance’s son Jason -- tout the smaller-city facility as the boutique alternative for filmmakers looking to shoot in the state.

“New Mexico now has a first-class studio,” said Lance Hool, producer of such movies as "Man on Fire" and "Flipper." "This will help stabilize the industry and with the backing of the administration will result in more activity."

One of the pioneers of state-implemented film incentives, New Mexico’s 25% tax rebate, combined with its proximity to Los Angeles, mild weather, experienced crew and aggressive state film office, proved to be a gold mine for the state, resulting in $275 million in annual direct film spending at its peak in fiscal year 2008. Films shot in New Mexico include “Transformers,” “Terminator Salvation” and, most recently, “The Last Stand” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.  

The future of the state’s film industry was thrown into question earlier this year when New Mexico became the latest of several states, including Michigan, to consider cutting its film subsidies. Gov. Susana Martinez had attempted to reduce rebates to 15% but lawmakers ultimately reached a compromise to keep the incentive but implemented a rolling annual cap of $50 million.

Although the cap is well below the tax credits approved in the last two years -- $65.9 million in 2010 and $76.4 million in 2009 -- New Mexico Film Office Director Nick Maniatis said the new limit should not hinder the state’s ability to attract future productions, as applications for qualifying projects filed after the limit was reached would fall into queue for payment the next year.

“We saw a fallback when the incentive was in question, but we’re hoping that by the spring we’ll be back to where we were,” Maniatis said.

The total value of approved tax credits has been on the decline for the last two years, with $54.6 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, compared with $65.9 million in the same period a year prior and $76.4 million in fiscal 2009, according to the New Mexico Film Office.

Despite this decline, Hool is confident about the future of the movie industry in the state after meeting with Martinez earlier this week. “She’s 100% behind the film business,” Hool said.

Hool says Santa Fe Studios has received substantial interest from filmmakers considering shooting at the new facility. “We have several features and television shows booked.”

Although Hool would not confirm which productions were heading toward the studio, he said Disney’s much-publicized “The Lone Ranger,” starring Johnny Depp, was among the possibilities. Albuquerque Studios is expected to be the main base for "The Lone Ranger" but Santa Fe is negotiating to have some of the film shot at its new studio, said one person familiar with the matter. Production of "Lone Ranger" halted in August in a dispute over the film's budget, which is more than $200 million, but is scheduled to resume early next year.

Jon Hendry, business agent for Local 480 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents crew members in New Mexico, is optimistic about the state’s ability to bounce back from the uncertainty of the last few months and says Santa Fe Studios will play into that recovery.

“Albuquerque Studios was transformative for New Mexico,” Hendry said. “I have no reason to believe Santa Fe Studios won’t be able to accomplish the same thing."

RELATED:

New Mexico OKs $50-million cap on film rebates

New Mexico kicks in $10 million for studio project

New Mexico's film industry hopes to steal the show

-- Dima Alzayat

Photo: Santa Fe Studios in Santa Fe, N.M. Credit: Santa Fe Studios

On Location: 'Iron Man 3' lands in North Carolina

In a blow to Los Angeles' below-the-line community, Marvel Studios will take its next "Iron Man" movie to Wilmington, N.C.

After weeks of speculation about where the movie would land, EUE/Screen Gems co-owner and Chief Operating Officer Chris Cooney confirmed Thursday that Manhattan Beach-based Marvel will shoot its next "Iron Man" movie at his studio in North Carolina.

“We aggressively pursued this piece of business,” Cooney said at a press conference held at the studio. “We negotiated hard and it paid off.”

Marvel also had been considering Michigan, but uncertainty surrounding the future of that state's tax credit took it out of the running.  Marvel executives also weighed filming in Los Angeles -- where the first two films in the superhero franchise were shot -- and New Mexico, but executives were ultimately wooed by North Carolina’s 25% film tax credit, in addition to the large Wilmington studio. California offers a film credit of up to 25% but it excludes big-budget movies like "Iron Man 3."

“We have a massive film facility and the third-largest film and television based crew in the country,” EUE/Screen Gems Executive President Bill Vassar said.

Vassar also noted that EUE/Screen Gem’s relationship with Disney, which bought Marvel Studios in 2009, played an instrumental role in getting Marvel executives to consider the Wilmington studio for filming. EUE/Screen Gems, which owns additional studios in Manhattan and Atlanta, also operates a lighting and grip company in Charleston, S.C., that has worked with Disney on several projects including the ABC pilot “Revenge" and four seasons of the television series “Army Wives."

“We’ve been under Disney’s radar for a long time,” Vassar said. “We have a wonderful relationship with them.”

“Iron Man 3,” scheduled for a 2013 release with a budget estimated at more than $140 million, will be the largest film to shoot in North Carolina so far. Offices will open in early January and cameras are expected to start rolling in the spring, Vassar said.

Most of the production, expected to last about 10 months, will take place in the state. Marvel will use all 10 of EUE/Screen Gem’s stages, the largest of which is 37,5000 square feet and includes a special-effects water tank, over the course of production.

At the press conference, North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue predicted an economic windfall for the state. The movie is expected to create 550 jobs for crew members and crafts people and pump $80 million into North Carolina's economy, Perdue said.

Representatives of Marvel were unavailable for comment.

RELATED: 

New Atlanta studio complex opens as Georgia filming booms

On Location: Birns & Sawyer auctions its film cameras

Robert Downey Jr. revisits his film career

-- Dima Alzayat

Photo: EUE/Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, N.C. Credit: EUE/Screen Gems.

On Location: 'The Frozen Ground' heats up filming in Alaska

Apart from hosting shows such as Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" and History Channel's "Ice Road Truckers," Alaska isn't exactly a hotbed for film production.

But after the state implemented generous film incentives in 2009, Hollywood has begun to warm up to the Last Frontier, sending several new feature film productions its way.

“The Frozen Ground,” based on the real-life 1980s Alaskan hunt for serial killer Robert Hansen, became the most recent Hollywood feature to shoot in Alaska when cameras started rolling in Anchorage this week.

The film will be directed by Scott Walker, who also wrote the script, and will star John Cusack as Hansen and Nicholas Cage as the Alaska state trooper who tracked Hansen down. Emmett/Furla, Amber Entertainment and rapper 50 Cent, who will play a pimp in the film, are producing with Lionsgate and Grindstone Entertainment distributing the picture.

The six-week production will film in and around the suburb where Hansen lived in the northeast part of Anchorage as well as in neighboring mountains where the killer took his victims, said the film’s producer, Randall Emmett.

The project sought to stay true to the actual events of the story by filming in Alaska but the decision to film in the distant state was ultimately a financial one. Emmett had considered splitting the production between Michigan and Louisiana, where the producer has taken advantage of filming incentive programs for past productions.

“But when we did the numbers, it made more sense to shoot in Alaska,” Emmett said, “We’re now talking about doing other films up there.”

Filming future projects in Alaska, said the producer, would offset the hefty cost of shipping equipment and getting crews to the state. The budget for “The Frozen Ground” is in the $20 million to $30 million range, Emmett said.

As several other states’ film incentive programs are being scaled back or eliminated altogether, Alaska’s tax rebate is expected to expand, according to Dave Worrell, development specialist at the Alaska Film Office. The $100-million program offers a 30% base credit toward qualified production expenses. Additional incentives for hiring Alaskans, filming in rural areas or filming in winter can increase the possible credit to 44%.

Current incentives are set to expire in 2013, but a bill that would extend the program until 2023 and add an extra $200 million has unanimously passed the Alaska Senate and is awaiting approval from the state’s House Finance Committee, which will vote on the bill next year.

According to Worrell and the Alaska Film Office’s 2011 Report to the Legislature, 13 feature films pre-qualified for tax credits in the state’s 2011 fiscal year, compared with just one in fiscal 2009, including Universal's "Big Miracle," starring Drew Barrymore, which was filmed in Alaska last year and is set for a February release.

Although crews remain scarce and infrastructure is lacking, Worrell said resources are steadily improving. For example, Evergreen Films, one of the production companies behind the $65-million “Walking with Dinosaurs 3D," which is currently filming in Alaska, has already built a post-production facility in Anchorage that will include a 50-foot-by-50-foot green screen used to simulate backgrounds.

“We are seeing folks who grew up in Alaska and those who left coming back home to work,"Worrell said.

RELATED:

On Location: Busy week for commercial filming in L.A.

On Location: Skid row finds new home in 'Lost Angels' documentary

Hollywood: A river runs through it

-- Dima Alzayat

Photo: Valdez, Alaska. Credit: State of Alaska Tourism Office

Sue Mengers, powerhouse Hollywood agent, dies at 79

Sue Mengers, a veteran talent agent who blazed a path for women in Hollywood and represented some of its biggest stars, died Saturday night at her Beverly Hills home after a long illness. She was 79.

At the time of her death, Mengers was surrounded by several friends, including talent agent Boaty Boatwright, actress Ali MacGraw and Joanna Poitier, wife of actor Sidney Poitier.

For two decades, Mengers was one of the entertainment industry's most powerful agents, rising fast in a business dominated by men. She earned a reputation as a skilled negotiator and tough adversary. And she had a knack for putting together packages of talent -- including authors, directors and stars -- that produced box office blockbusters.

"Sue was a valued colleague and friend for many years," said International Creative Management Chairman Jeff Berg, who worked with Mengers for 16 years and was her former boss at ICM.  "She had an incisive wit, sharp tongue and great creative instincts."

Among the Hollywood luminaries Mengers represented over the span of her career were Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Candice Bergen, Steve McQueen, Nick Nolte, Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, directors Sidney Lumet and Brian De Palma, and writer Gore Vidal.

"I worked with her when she was at ICM in her absolute heyday. She gave meaning to the word woman power," said longtime Hollywood agent and manager Joan Hyler. "She was arguably the most famous agent of her time. And the fact that she was a woman and fearless was quite extraordinary."

Born in 1932 in Hamburg, Germany, Mengers didn't learn English until she was 6 years old, when her family immigrated to New York to escape the Holocaust. Her family settled in upstate New York, in Utica, where her father worked as a traveling salesman.

At the age of 11, her father committed suicide, and she and her mother relocated to the Bronx, where her mother took a job as a bookkeeper.

Mengers started her career in 1955, working as a receptionist at MCA Inc. talent agency, which at the time had a roster of clients that included Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. She was hired as a secretary at the theatrical agency Baum & Newborn, until finally landing a position as a secretary with the Willam Morris Agency.

Mengers left William Morris in 1963 when Tom Korman, a former Baum & Newborn colleague, invited her to become a partner in his agency. Her first client was actress Julie Harris, an accomplished Broadway star who was interested in appearing in the TV western "Bonanza." Mengers contacted the producer, who commissioned a specially written episode for Harris.

In 1967, Mengers began working as a theater agent for Creative Management Associates, which later became ICM. A year later, she moved from New York to Los Angeles, where she became known for star-studded parties that were among the most coveted invitations in Hollywood.

"I never invited anyone who wasn't successful," Mengers told the New Yorker in an interview published in 1994. "I was ruthless about it. It was all stars. I would look around my living room at all of them and even I'd be impressed with myself."

Mengers quit ICM in 1986 and went on a two-year hiatus before joining the William Morris Agency for a three-year stint. None of her old clients followed her, so she retired in 1991. In her later years, Mengers' pink home in Beverly Hills became a salon for agents, movie stars, authors and filmmakers to talk shop over meals.

She  married Belgian writer-director Jean-Claude Tramont on May 5, 1973, and Streisand was her maid of honor. He died on Dec. 27, 1996. She leaves no survivors.

"It's the end of an era," said "Twilight" producer Karen Rosenfelt, who was Mengers' secretary at ICM in the early 1980s. "She was a fiercely loyal friend and agent to her clients. She broke the glass ceiling for many women in the industry. She was a guiding light in my career."

RELATED:

Photos: Notable film and televion deaths of 2011

1993: Sue Mengers broke the rules -- and it worked

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski and Amy Kaufman

Photo of Sue Mengers, courtesy of ICM. 

On Location: Soderbergh brings 'Magic Mike' to L.A.

 
With his latest pandemic thriller “Contagion” enjoying critical praise and generating more than $50 million in ticket sales, Steven Soderbergh has already started rolling the cameras on his next project, and this time, he’s keeping it in town.

The Oscar-winning director, who hasn’t shot a film primarily in L.A. since 2006’s “The Good German,”  recently began production on “Magic Mike,” a comedy about male strippers living in Tampa, Fla., at Mulligan’s Family Fun Center in Torrance. The five-week shoot, which will mostly film in L.A. with some on-location filming to take place in Florida, has since shot scenes in Hollywood and Studio City and at Dockweiler Beach, according to FilmL.A. Inc., the nonprofit that handles film permits.

Soderbergh’s filming locations have spanned several states and countries over his lengthy career, which began more than two decades ago with the cult classic “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” “Contagion” was shot primarily in Illinois, a state the director has also used for filming parts of “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Ocean’s Twelve” and “The Informant!” His next film to hit theaters, “Haywire,” a spy thriller starring Channing Tatum that is scheduled for a Jan. 20 release, was shot largely in Ireland.

“Magic Mike,” is based on Tatum’s early life as an exotic dancer in Tampa and has Tatum playing the title character, Mike Martingano, a veteran stripper who takes a newbie dancer, played by Alex Pettyfer, under his wing. Matthew McConaughey, Olivia Munn, Joe Manganiello and Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough, will also star in the film.

The privately financed project does not yet have domestic distribution and is being produced by Nick Wechsler, Gregory Jacobs, Tatum and Reid Carolin, who also wrote the script.

A publicist for the film said producers were unavailable for comment.

After “Magic Mike,” Soderbergh is planning to direct the Warner Bros. film “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” based on the 1960s television series and scheduled to begin shooting in February, and the biopic “Liberace” about the flamboyant pianist, scheduled to start filming in June.

RELATED:

On Location: Pro house carves out unusual niche

On Location: TV drama joins film marketing effort

Movie review: 'Contagion'

The Directors: Steven Soderbergh, 'Contagion'

-- Dima Alzayat

Jeff Sagansky-led film fund to invest in up to 16 movies [Updated]

Veteran media executive Jeff Sagansky and his partners are betting hundreds of millions of dollars on more than a dozen Hollywood "tentpoles."

Sagansky, a former top CBS and Sony Corp. executive, on Tuesday announced plans to invest in 12 to 16 big-budget studio releases over the next several years as part of a venture that launched last year but has recently been expanded.

The fund, called Hemisphere Tentpole Co-Financing Fund, is co-led by Jean-Luc De Fanti and Eli Baker. The three men also run a smaller media-investment firm, formerly called Winchester Capital Partners, that put money into the George Clooney film "The Men Who Stare at Goats" and the TNT television series "Leverage."

Hemisphere has already selected four movies in which it is making minority investments: Last week's Sony Pictures release "The Smurfs," which had a solid opening at the box office; December's Steven Spielberg-directed comic-strip adaptation, "The Adventures of Tin Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn," from Paramount Pictures; next May's "Men in Black 3" from Sony Pictures; and "World War Z" starring Brad Pitt, which is to come out next year from Paramount Pictures.

The firm is investing more than $200 million of equity in the four movies, the Hemisphere partners said. Its future financing will be a mix of equity, provided by investors including Toho-Towa Co. and Kadokawa Shoten of Japan and South Korea's Lotte Cinema, as well as bank debt being arranged by JP Morgan Chase.

Despite the ongoing decline in DVD sales, Sagansky said in an interview that he sees opportunity in the growth of foreign box office in countries such as Russia, China and Brazil, as well as in digital distribution. "We're looking for movies that can be seen by families and have lots of special effects, so there's a universal language," he said. "That's increasingly where all of the studios want to be, but the movies are very expensive, so they are happy to mitigate risk."

The amount of outside money available to co-finance studio movies has decreased in the last few years amid the economic downturn. That situation has started to turn around in the last year, however, with the launch of other ventures such as David Ellison's Skydance Productions, which is partnered with Paramount Pictures.

Unlike most film co-financing ventures, Hemisphere is not aligned with any particular studio, although three of its first four pictures are backed by Sony Pictures.

-- Ben Fritz

[Update, Aug. 3, 11:33 a.m.: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Tom Cruise will star in "World War Z."]

RELATED:

Jeff Sagansky stakes claim to new media future

Upper photo: A scene from "The Smurfs." Credit: Sony Pictures

Lower photo: Jeff Sagansky. Credit: Jeff Sagansky