MFG NEWS / NOUVELLES DU MFG

Reprinted 5/18/07:

Blumhouse, ROOM 101 Inks First-Look Deal With Horror Guru, Mitch Davis

LOS ANGELES, CA (May 14, 2007) – Paramount Pictures-based Blumhouse Productions and its genre films production partner ROOM 101, Inc. announced today a first-look production deal with Fantasia Film Festival programmer, Mitch Davis.

The first-look pact is designed to utilize Davis' knowledge of the international genre film scene and his position at Fantasia to deliver projects from talented new writers and directors, as well as to seek out exciting and high-concept foreign films as possible remakes.

Davis will continue to serve as a Programming Director for Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival (a position he has held since 1997), North America's largest and most influential fantastic film festival. Fantasia Film Festival has been regularly cited as the place where the Western J-horror craze began. It was the first film festival in North America to screen a film by Takashi Miike (“Audition”), the original “Ringu” and many others.

Steven Schneider, Producer for ROOM 101, brought Davis into Blumhouse Productions fold and will oversee the deal. According to Schneider, “Mitch Davis is an incredible resource for us – a filmmaker, scholar, curator and journalist with unparalleled awareness of the international genre scene. We are very excited to be formalizing our relationship with him.”

Davis is an award-winning filmmaker whose experimental short film credits include "Divided Into Zero" and "God's Little Girl"; his producing credits include Karim Hussain's 2000 cult feature "Subconscious Cruelty". In addition, Davis has written for numerous genre and alternative film publications, and is head of US Theatrical and DVD retail for Montreal-based Atopia Distribution, whose releases include "On the Trail of Igor Rizzi" (Venice Film Festival 2006) and "The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez" (Sundance Film Festival 2006).

Blumhouse Productions has a first-look deal at Paramount Pictures with offices on the studio lot. Among the projects currently in development are “Five Men Who Broke My Heart” and “Rex Mex” at Paramount; “Game of Sunken Places” at Nickelodeon and Paramount; and “My Korean Deli” and the television series “The Washingtonienne” at HBO which Blum is producing with Sarah Jessica Parker. Blum was formerly co-head of Acquisitions and Co-Productions at Miramax and his producing credits include "Hamlet", "The Darwin Awards," “The Accidental Husband” and "Hysterical Blindness.

Media contact:
Jonathan Bing
Freud Communications
(323) 866-6060
jonathan.bing@freud.com



-62-