Mark Canton's production companyAtmosphere Entertainment and financing outfit Relativity Media have formedChiller Films, a joint venture to produce several films a year budgeted at upto $20m each.

Canton andRelativity principal Ryan Kavanaugh will produce with Atmosphere's SteveBarnett and Relativity's Lynwood Spinks serving as executive producers.

The partners arein talks with distributors on the first project and expect to have a first-lookco-financing deal in place shortly.

Relativity willhandle the overall financing and distribution arrangements on all projects,including arranging foreign sales, equity, gap and other related financingmatters.

"Just as we didwith George Romero, the horror genre's master icon, we want Chiller Films to bethe attractive place for talented filmmakers to make their movies we want tobe their only port of call," Canton said in a statement.

"The initial focus may behorror, but the idea is to be ahead of the trend. Our ultimate goal is to makemovies that sell tickets and move audiences, whether that be by screaming,laughing or crying."

"We are alreadyin discussions with a number of banks to provide a production facility whichwill allow us to finance and produce our own films," Kavanaugh added. "Wereally want to become a turn key finance and production entity, and we have seta great platform to do just that."

Atmosphere andRelativity are working together on Romero's current production of Land OfThe Dead. The zombieproject began filming in Toronto last October and is due to open later thisyear. Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper and Asia Argento star.