Southpaw Media Group, the LAproduction outfit set up by former Trilogy Entertainment Group partner Richard BLewis, is partnering with Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium on two pictures- The Whole Wide World, anaction love story set against the backdrop of NASA's early lunarmissions, and Across The Universe,an inter-galactic adventure set in the far reaches of outer space.

Both pictures are beingoverseen by Ashley Kramer, executive vice president of Pandemonium, whichrecently signed a five year co-financing, production and distribution pact withThe Walt Disney Studios.

TheWhole Wide World was written byStewart Schill and tells the story of a hotshot astronaut and his athlete wifewho, after an extraordinary life-changing incident, struggle to find themeaning in their everyday lives.

AcrossThe Universe is an original story bySam Egan based on an idea from Bill Mechanic himself and tells the story of arace against time to the edges of the known universe.

"Richardbrought us a terrific script in The Whole Wide World and we worked so well together that we decided topartner up on Across The Universe,"said Mechanic in a statement. "This is a relationship we'd like tokeep mining, even as we get these first two films to the screen."

Lewisfounded Southpaw in 2000 after leaving Trilogy which he co-founded with JohnWatson and Pen Densham. Together with Egan, Lewis has initiated two picturesrecently - The Volunteer, asci-fi pitch which was sold to New Line with Nicolas Cage attached to star andproduce, and Just Like Us, ascreenplay inspired by the book Next Of Kin by Roger Fouts.

ThePandemonium deals were brokered by Jon Levin at CAA and Mike Adler at Lichter,Grossman, Nichols & Adler.

He will be working on filmsincluding George Hickenlooper's The Man From Elysian Fields, Henry Bean's The Believer and Sandra Goldbacher's Me Without You.