“We’re looking for projects where we can own a piece of the IP,” says veteran US producer Christa Campbell, who has set up financier-producer XTA Media and is attending the AFM as she builds a slate with a range of budgets and partners from studios and independents.
“I’m looking for books to option, articles,” Campbell says. ”We want to spend money on development because we want to own our own library.”
XTA Media is backed by $150m in seed funding from London-based Three Thousand Capital. Campbell worked at Millennium Films for 17 years and counts Red Sonja and Tesla among her many producer credits alongside executive producer roles on the upcoming John Rambo and KISS biopic Shout It Out Loud.
“I know a lot of people in the independent film space, and a lot of them have been pitching.”
XTA Media will fully finance or co-finance. There is no internal sales team and where appropriate the company CEO will appoint a sales agent. “I know what something is worth,” says Campbell, who most recently consulted for STX. “If I have an action film and can put the pieces together, I can sell in the foreign market and leave a gap for a domestic sale.”
The company will co-finance the dark comedy thriller In The Blue from writer-directors Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers. Passage Pictures’ Uri Singer and Isabella Zanobini are producing the story about an aspiring actor and tutor paid to finish a client’s college applications during an ill-fated luxury yacht trip. “These girls are the next generation,” Campbell suggests of the filmmakers, who met at Yale and previously made Voyeur and Floating Carousel.
Campbell is also developing two studio-level projects: an action package with a “huge” director that she has been developing for 18 months with a partner who owns the project; and a potential co-finance studio partnership that she has worked on for three years.
It will come as no surprise that given her track record, Campbell will always be quick to roll up her sleeves as a producer, too. “I want to be involved and be on set when we own IP and develop. We don’t want to just write a cheque and say, ‘See you, good luck.’”
She has no patience for those who bemoan the challenges of the film business. “Things are always changing,” she says, adding: “I’ve always worked for the underdogs who fight and know how to get movies made. People say the business is dead; that’s bullcrap. If you want to get something done, you can get it done.”
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