By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

STRAUS UNVEILS BGP AS NEW YORK-BASED DOMESTIC SALES COMPANY

Posted Monday, April 2nd, 2012 - 1 Comment »
Be Sociable, Share!

For Immediate Release

New York, NY (April 2, 2012) — Former New Line executive and producer Bill Straus has launched BGP, a Gotham-based domestic sales company.  Straus, who has had a producing deal with Circle of Confusion since 2003, will continue to work in affiliation with the well-regarded production-management company.  Straus’s producing banner, Billy Goat Pictures, will remain as a separate entity.

Among BGP’s initial clients will be THE PLAYROOM, a film by Julia Dyer (“Late Bloomers”) starring indie sensations John Hawkes (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”) and Molly Parker (Dexter, The Firm).  Set in 1970’s suburbia, the film concerns a teenager and her younger siblings as they spend the night in their attic telling each other fantastical stories, while downstairs their parents entertain guests over the course of a gin-soaked evening.

THE PLAYROOM will premiere in the gala spotlight section of next month’s Tribeca Film Festival.  Hawkes has also garnered a lot of attention lately for a series of performances that include his Academy Award™ nominated role in WINTER’S BONE, the soon-to-be released Sundance hit THE SURROGATE, and a recurring role on HBO’s Eastbound and Down.

Straus’s producing credits include THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAY, WEAPONS, and the upcoming STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON at New Line/Warner Brothers.

“BGP is a boutique sales company focused on quality over quantity,” said Straus. “Because of our size, there will be a premium on client attentiveness and long term strategies when necessary.”

####

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 1 Comment »

One Response to “STRAUS UNVEILS BGP AS NEW YORK-BASED DOMESTIC SALES COMPANY”

  1. Filmnerd says:
    April 4, 2012 at 10:01 pm

    Awesome! Good luck to Bill, a stand-up guy with a heart of gold.

Quote Unquotesee all »

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