EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous Content president and CEO Darren Walker has pledged to double the number of European features from the US production and management company within 12 months.
“We want to be in the international market with greater intensity,” said Walker, who has been meeting financiers and producers on the Croisette and wants to boost the pipeline from three to six. “Talent loves to work here and they have a world-class production and financing infrastructure. We in America have a lot to learn […] We mustn’t constrain our thinking.”
Anonymous Content, backed by Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, has three films in Cannes selection, two of which are European partnerships. It developed and strategically invested in Asghar Farhadi’s Competition selection Parallel Tales, produced with Memento Films, and is selling North American rights with UTA Independent Film Group.
The company invested in Phuong Mai Nguyen’s Critics’ Week opener In Waves at pre-production stage, produced alongside Paris-based Silex Films, and sells with Charades and CAA Media Finance.
“We produce, we’ll option books, fund development, and finance strategically,” said Walker, who led the philanthropic Ford Foundation for 12 years and was brought in by Jobs, a Ford trustee. He is positioned to become a thought-leader figurehead at the company founded by Steve Golin, who died in 2019.
“I see our work as a noble calling,” he said. “We’re an entertainment company that lifts the human spirit – and makes money.” The company will work on films in the $3-20m budget range.
Anonymous Content developed Zachary Wigon’s Un Certain Regard entry Victorian Psycho starring Maika Monroe that Bleecker Street will distribute in the US on September 25. Anton fully financed and sells internationally.
The European production slate includes Gomorrah writer Roberto Saviano’s upcoming autobiographical graphic novel I’m Still Alive in partnership with Charades; and Hanna Bergholm’s Berlin Competition motherhood horror Nightborn.
In the market Anonymous is jointly handling US sales with Anton and WME Independent on Egor Abramenko’s horror Soon You Will Be Gone (And Possibly Eaten) starring Dave Franco and Sophie Wilde.
In the several months since Walker arrived, Anonymous Content’s Sally Field drama Remarkably Bridget Creatures has topped the Netflix charts and client David Frankel’s The Devil Wears Prada 2 has earned more than $545m at the global box office.
“We’re in the storytelling business,” Walker said. “My life changed through cinema. I grew up a poor kid in Liberty Hill in Texas and went to the small theatre every Saturday. The films that most excited me were the stories of people who looked like me. Sydney Poiter was my hero. I want us to tell stories that are meaningful, that speak to our humanity, and provide us with moments of joy, delight, awe, and possibility.”
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