Focus Features, looking to expand into mainstream commercial territory, has created Rogue Pictures, a label devoted to upscale action, thriller and urban fare with franchise potential.
Focus co-presidents David Linde and James Schamus announced Rogue at ShoWest on Wednesday, giving the 2-year-old Universal specialty unit additional muscle to compete with more established players like Miramax and New Line.
Unlike Miramax sister unit Dimension Films, however, Rogue will be run by the same executive team as Focus, rather than by a dedicated staff. Rogue releases will be overseen by Focus distribution prexy Jack Foley, who honed his genre skills on the “Scream” series while at Miramax.
While the first-year lineup includes three or four pics, Focus has not set an annual quota of titles for the division. Like the Focus slate, Rogue’s output will tilt more heavily toward features developed inhouse than acquisitions.
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The genre arm will debut with the wide Halloween-weekend release of horror sequel “Seed of Chucky,” now in production with series creator Don Mancini writing and directing. The fifth deadly doll installment stars Jennifer Tilly, Redman, Hannah Spearritt, John Waters and the voices of Billy Boyd and Brad Dourif.
Rogue gets Jet pic
The first domestic acquisition for Rogue is an untitled Jet Li starrer produced by Luc Besson’s Europa Corp., currently in post. Directed by Louis Leterrier, the action drama about a violent killing machine who attempts to break from the mob also stars Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins. Focus parent Universal will release the pic in the U.K., Germany, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa through UIP.
Also on the inaugural Rogue slate is director Jean-Francois Richet’s remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 “Assault on Precinct 13,” which starts shooting April 5. Rapper Busta Rhymes has joined the cast, which includes Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, John Leguizamo, Drea de Matteo, Gabriel Byrne and Brian Dennehy.
“In the same way we’ve carved out our niche as Focus in the last two years, Rogue will stick very much to our basic model,” Schamus told Daily Variety. “On the same day we hear that the average MPAA studio release costs over $100 million, we realize there is a real place in the market right now for sanely budgeted and marketed, audience-specific movies that aren’t necessarily arthouse. We’ve given it long, hard thought.”
“We still perceive it as a specialized business, but what Rogue represents is an organic growth of that kind of business,” he continued. “We don’t have to assume in our plans that any of these films will be wild successes, but what we can assume is that every release will get the chance to be so.”
Talent focus
Despite the emphasis on more commercial genre fare and far wider, more aggressively upfront releases than the distrib’s standard platform approach, Rogue will retain the key Focus mandate of seeking material- and filmmaker-driven projects that utilize established and breakout talent.
“The same rules still apply, which is that the one kind of movie we’ll never make is the movie for everybody,” Schamus explained. “We realize that there is added value to building a brand and in not confusing what people have come to associate with the Focus name to date, but instead trying to re-create the same kind of pedigree with this other part of the movie landscape.”
As part of the branding of the nascent division, Focus will set up strategic corporate alliances, Internet marketing and outreach to genre and niche media. Worldwide rights to the majority of Rogue titles will be held by Focus Intl.
Focus, in addition to spawning a string of specialty hits and awards honorees — including “The Pianist,” “Far From Heaven,” “Lost in Translation,” “21 Grams” and the current “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” — has developed a thriving international business that lends stability to the domestic operation.
Hatched out of Good Machine Intl., Focus Intl. has shepherded $100 million-grossing hits from titles like “Lost in Translation” and Zhang Yimou’s “Hero.” This year, the division has international rights to Pedro Almodovar’s Cannes opener “Bad Education” and Zhang’s “House of Flying Daggers,” which also is among titles under discussion for the French fest.
Balance sought
“Domestic and international both function as anchors for each other,” Schamus said. “When you make the kind of movies we make, they have to work internationally — look at ’21 Grams.’ When you take the kind of aesthetic risks we take in the normal course of business, you must be able to leverage those against what you know is a more available international marketplace.”
The introduction of Rogue means that titles previously sold off, like last year’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake — which went to New Line during the transition from Good Machine to Focus — now will remain inhouse earners.
Focus’ expanded configuration inevitably draws comparison with the Miramax of some years back, before it ventured more forcefully into studio-style fare. However, Focus now arguably has less overlap with its parent company in the style of films it is producing than Miramax has with Disney.
Up to now, Focus has had less association with foreign-language pickups than some of its competitors. But the unit indicated a commitment to that area with its high-priced domestic acquisition at Sundance of Walter Salles’ young-Che Guevara pic “The Motorcycle Diaries” (headed for a competition berth at Cannes), which could be one of the major foreign-language crossover titles of the year.
Rogue projects in active development include “The Horsemen,” a murder mystery written by David Callaham to be produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes with Ted Field’s Radar Pictures; an update of 1979 ghost tale “The Changeling,” adapted by Dave Kajanuk, to be produced by Joel Michaels and exec produced by Amanda Klein and former Focus head of production Glenn Williamson; and “Revolver,” a thriller penned by Adam Sussman to be produced by Ray Gun’s Aaron Ryder.
While no deals are in place with regular suppliers, Schamus points to projects in the pipeline with partners like Bay, Besson and “Chucky” producer David Kirschner as the kind of relationships Rogue will nurture.