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JEFERY LEVY TO LAUNCH PRODUCTION COMPANY, XMARKSTHEEARTH, IN 2012

Posted Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 - Comments Off on JEFERY LEVY TO LAUNCH PRODUCTION COMPANY, XMARKSTHEEARTH, IN 2012
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Company is fully funded to produce three films a year for the next five years

Los Angeles, CA (November 30, 2011) – The critically acclaimed and award-winning writer, director, and producer Jefery Levy and his partners will launch a new production company, XMarksTheEarth, in early 2012, Levy today announced. XMarksTheEarth has been in an R&D stage for the past two years, and is currently fully funded to produce a slate of three films a year for the next five years, budgeted at approximately three million dollars per film.

The first film in the slate, SECRET LIVES, is based on the legendary Japanese novel by Nobel Laureate Junichiro Tanizaki and will start pre-production in January. Other films planned for 2012 include DISTANCE, which will likely star Billy Zane and Paz de la Huerta and CROSSROADS, starring Aidan Quinn. Jeremy Piven is in discussions with the company to star in UN(RE)SOLVED, which would also start shooting in 2012.

Over the past two years, XMarksTheEarth has developed almost two-dozen original screenplays, and is working on adaptations of books by such world-class authors as Nobel Prize laureate Junichiro Tanizaki, American treasure Jay McInerney, local sensation Katie Arnoldi, Robert Cheever, Agatha Christie, and Kate Braverman.

“Our intention is to produce films that leap out of this ultra-saturated marketplace and grab attention, through a combination of highly original and/or branded subject matter, known talent, and cutting-edge execution,” said Levy. “Also, we intend to make a number of films that can then be turned into television and web series, utilizing state-of-the-art digital technology, including virtual sets.”

XMarksTheEarth’s television projects include a partnership with Tumoltous Group on “Sex Drugs and Rock n Roll,” an original series developed for Starz described as “Mad Men” about A&R Executives in the wild 80’s, and “You’re In The Band,” a reality competition show. XMarksTheEarth is also working with Tumoltuous Group on the feature PRIORITY, the story of Bryan Turner, his discovery of NWA and the subsequent rise of his west coast rap label Priority Records.

XMarksTheEarth also plans a fun and very scary reboot of GHOULIES, which Levy produced while in graduate film school at UCLA in 1984. The film became a successful global horror franchise in the 80’s and 90’s, and is one of a number of horror franchises the company plans to produce.

In his film and television work Levy has helped to launch the careers of dozens of now major stars including Heath Ledger and Vera Farmiga (“Roar”), Reese Witherspoon, Stephen Dorff, and Tobey Maguire (“S.F.W.”), Anne Hathaway and Jesse Eisenberg (“Get Real”), Patricia Arquette, Rikki Lake, Sandra Bernhard, Debi Mazar, and Rupert Everett (“Inside Monkey Zetterland”), Jessica Alba (“Dark Angel”), and Nikki Reed (“Man Of God”), just to name a few.

Levy has also penned a roman a clef about his extraordinary global adventures in film, fashion and food, which will be published in late 2012.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon