Solstice Studios Launches With $400 Million Capitalization, Partners With Ingenious Media To Produce And Distribute Theatrical Feature Films

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Oct 03, 2018, 10:00 ET

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Solstice Studios opened its doors with $400 million in capitalization today, including $150 million through Ingenious Media. The company will be based in Los Angeles and will develop, fully finance, produce, sell internationally and distribute feature films in the U.S. on a wide-release basis.

The Solstice team has a $5 billion production track record and is expected to grow to 65 people in its first year. The company's founders are: President & CEO Mark Gill (former president of Warner Independent Pictures, Miramax Films and Millennium Films); Production Heads Andrew Gunn (Freaky Friday, Cruella) and Guy Botham (of Vitality VFX); and Marketing and Strategy Head Vincent Bruzzese (formerly at STX, OTX and Marketcast).

Solstice plans to produce 3-5 movies per year for a global audience—generally in the $30-80M budget range. It also plans to acquire another 2-4 films per year for wide US distribution.

"Our focus will be those wide-release films, which US theaters want, Americans still go to see, and which drive international independent distributors' slates," Gill said.

For its productions, Solstice will target movies with global appeal, primarily in the action, thriller and action-comedy genres. In the American acquisitions arena, the company will consider any film which merits a wide U.S. release, including action, thriller, comedy, romantic comedy, science fiction and horror.

Ingenious, founded by Patrick McKenna in 1998, is an established investment business and facilitated funding for features such as Avatar, Life of Pi and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Said Will Harrison, Managing Director of Ingenious Media, "We couldn't be happier to be supporting Mark and his team of industry veterans in this enormously exciting production and distribution initiative. The independent feature film space has been increasingly underserved and producers everywhere will be delighted to find a new distribution buyer and production partner in the market. Ingenious has a proud track record of bringing together top creative talent and the very best commercial partners, a tradition which this new venture will help us continue."

Christopher Milburn and Gareth West curated and brokered the Ingenious funding and will have an ongoing role in sourcing projects and co-financing opportunities for the company. The deal was negotiated by Mark Gill and Guy Botham for Solstice and Peter Touche, Head of Film for Ingenious Media.

Neil Sacker and David Eisman of Skadden represented the company. Lindsay Conner, partner and Chair of the Media and Entertainment Group at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP and his partner Sarah Fergusson Chambless represented Solstice's equity capital and P&A financier, a private U.S. family office. Anders Erdén, Director of Legal and Business Affairs acting for Ingenious.

The Solstice founding team includes: Physical Production Head Rene Besson ("Driven," "The Expendables" and "The Mechanic"); Head of Distribution Elliot Slutzky (most recently of Open Road and Miramax); Senior Vice President and CTO Ed Churchward (formerly of Vitality VFX); Senior Vice President of Strategy Miriam Brin (formerly of STX and OTX); and Senior Vice President of Production & Development Beth Bruckner O'Brien (formerly of Millennium).

Solstice President & CEO Mark Gill is the former president of Miramax Films, Warner Independent Pictures and Millennium Films. He has a production track record of $2.1 billion, 30 years of experience and a background in marketing (at Columbia Pictures). He has worked on such films as Pulp Fiction, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Frida, March of the Penguins, Good Night, and Good Luck, Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen and Hitman's Bodyguard.

Co-head of production Andrew Gunn is a film producer and production/development executive with more than 20 years of experience and a track record of $1.2 billion. From 2001-2015, he was exclusive to Walt Disney Pictures, where he produced such hits as Freaky Friday, The Haunted Mansion and Race to Witch Mountain. He is a producer on Cruella for Disney, starring Oscar winner Emma Stone.

Co-head of production Guy Botham is a leading movie visual effects entrepreneur with 15 years of experience who has worked on such hit movies as Wonder Woman, Avatar, The Social Network, Benjamin Button, Wolverine, The Avengers and The Revenant, most recently as founder and owner of Vitality VFX.

Head of Marketing and Strategy Vincent Bruzzese is a leading expert in Hollywood on data-driven production and marketing strategy (he has worked on more than 1,500 films). He is a former professor of statistics and a senior executive of two top entertainment research firms, MarketCast (co-founder) and OTX (President), and most recently was head of strategy and analytics for STX, where he championed the worldwide hit Bad Moms.

Head of Physical Production Rene Besson has 20 years of show business experience, notably in physical production of such star-driven films as The Expendables, The Mechanic, Homefront and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call. Most recently, he produced "Driven" and the forthcoming "Normal People." His expertise is maintaining studio-quality on screen at independent prices. He was previously Producer and Director on national promotion and branding campaigns for clients such as Sony Pictures Television, Telemundo, and NBC.

Head of U.S. Distribution Elliot Slutzky was most recently head of US theatrical distribution at Open Road Films from its inception. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at Miramax Films, ultimately as Executive Vice President/General Sales Manager of Theatrical Distribution. He previously held senior distribution positions at Live Entertainment, Vision International and New World Entertainment.

Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Edward Churchward started in the Film/TV/Commercial production industry in 2003 at Stink.co. In 2005, he co-founded and served as COO of a bookmaking firm, Fitzdares, and built the business to $150 million in 5 years. He conceived, designed and developed a cloud-based trading platform and app which revolutionized the way the company did business and was a first for the sector. Most recently, he joined Vitality VFX, where he worked on such movies as Wonder Woman and Justice League.

Senior Vice President of Strategy Miriam Brin has worked on hundreds of films in the pre-production and marketing phases at Ipsos, OTX and STX. She spearheaded the development of a new research service that employs data analysis to evaluate the marketability and playability of movies. Most notably, she developed a comprehensive database of genre archetypes and box office, which allows for more in-depth financial analysis.

Senior Vice President of Production and Development Beth Bruckner O'Brien was most recently Vice President of Production at Millennium Films, where she worked on such films as Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, Expendables 2 and 3 and Hitman's Bodyguard. Prior to that, she had a hand in such movies as Saw 6, House at the End of the Street and Saw 3D. Prior to that she worked at ICM.

About Ingenious Media:

For 20 years, Ingenious has been at the forefront of investing in the global creative economy and in that time has raised and deployed over $10 billion. Ingenious has been involved in the production of a diverse slate of films, including the award-winning Life of Pi, Avatar, Oscar®-nominated Carol, Brooklyn and Selma, five films in the successful X-Men franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, breakout British hits Suffragette and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as acclaimed television programmes such as The Fall, Dr. Foster and The Honourable Woman.

Titles currently in production include Judy starring Renée Zellweger, Gurinder Chadha's Blinded by the Light featuring the music of Bruce Springsteen, Lone Scherfig's currently Untitled Project, Bart Freundlich's After the Wedding starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, and Benedict Andrews' Against All Enemies starring Kristen Stewart and Jack O'Connell. Titles currently on release in US cinemas include Juliet, Naked based on the novel by Nick Hornby and The Little Stranger, directed by Oscar®-nominated director Lenny Abrahamson.

At Venice and Toronto film festivals Ingenious investee companies are proud to be showcasing six feature films: Dragged Across Concrete, starring Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn, and Julian Schnabel's At Eternity's Gate, starring Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh, are having their worldwide premieres at Venice. At Toronto, Hotel Mumbai, The Wedding Guest and Out of Blue will premiere, while Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy has been selected as the closing night film.