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6 months ago
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EXCLUSIVE: Karl Urban is in talks to join the Priyanka Chopra Jonas starring, Frank E. Flowers directed The Bluff from AGBO Studios and Amazon MGM Studios. Flowers, who also co-wrote The Bluff, is hot off writing this past two weeks’ No. hit, Bob Marley: One Love which shot past $120M worldwide.
Set in the 19th century Caribbean, The Bluff follows a former female pirate (Chopra Jonas) who must protect her family when the mysterious sins of her past catch up to her.
The film, which is targeting a spring start-of-production in Australia and will be available to stream on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, will further solidify the relationships between Amazon MGM Studios, AGBO, and Chopra Jonas following last year’s debut of the landmark global franchise, Citadel. Following its April 28 release, the spy-thriller became Prime Video’s second most-watched new original series outside the U.S., and fourth most-watched worldwide. Season Two of the series, also starring Richard Madden and Chopra Jonas, will begin production this year, with Joe Russo serving as director and AGBO executive producing.
Flowers co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Ballarini. Producers include AGBO’s Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Angela Russo-Otstot, and Michael Disco; Cinestar Pictures’ Cisely Saldana and Mariel Saldana; and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. EPs are AGBO’s Kassee Whiting; Cinestar Pictures’ Zoe Saldaña; Rocket Science’s Thorsten Schumacher; Joe Ballarini; and Frank E. Flowers.
Chopra Jonas counts more than seventy-five international and Hollywood films and series to her credit. In February 2021, she became a New York Times bestselling author with her memoir Unfinished. Up next, she will be seen in Prime Video’s Heads of State opposite John Cena and Idris Elba. Chopra Jonas’s production banner Purple Pebble Pictures is currently under a first look film and television deal with Amazon MGM Studios. Chopra Jonas is represented by UTA and Anjula Acharia.
Urban stars in Prime Video’s critically acclaimed series The Boys and spinoff Gen V. Urban is represented by UTA. He is known for playing Dr. Bones McCoy in the J.J. Abrams feature iteration of the Star Trek franchise.
Flowers also wrote Shooting Stars for Universal, with Lebron James producing. He also wrote and directed the 2004 Orlando Bloom movie Haven. He is represented by UTA, Brillstein, and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher, LLP.
Ballarini is represented by Verve and attorney Rob Goldman.
The Russo brothers’ AGBO in its streak as an independent studio has yielded several massively watched streaming movies including the Chris Hemsworth starrer Extraction on Netflix, which also introduced a new franchise centered around marquis practical stunts with stories set in untapped global locales and featuring local talent. With the release of Extraction 2 last summer, the franchise was cemented as the platform’s most successful to date and plans for Extraction 3 have already been announced. Other noteworthy successes from previous years include the Russo-directed film The Gray Man, which sits in the top five of Netflix’s “most viewed of all time” list, and the AGBO-produced film Everything Everywhere All At Once, which broke records for A24 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture last year.
Cinestar Pictures was co-founded by sisters Mariel, Cisely and Zoe Saldaña with a focus on broadening the American narrative and creating meaningful, character-driven content. Committed to honest portrayals of women and accurate representation of the America we live in, Cinestar produces contemporary, multicultural stories for everyone. The company’s first project was the AOL original series My Hero followed by the remake of Rosemary’s Baby with Lionsgate for NBC and their first feature film was The Honor List from Lionsgate’s Studio L released in 2018. Since then, their projects have included the beloved hit family comedy series The Gordita Chronicles for Sony and HBO Max, the limited series From Scratch at Netflix with Hello Sunshine, 2 seasons of the Emmy-nominated animal kingdom docuseries Mamas for Roku Channel, Meet Me in Paris, the first ever unscripted romantic comedy feature which quickly became the biggest Roku Original unscripted debut and the #1 reality title premiere in the history of platform with the recently released second season, Meet Me in Rome, the Disney+ series MPower which spotlights several of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most inspirational women heroes; the Taylor Sheridan created spy-thriller series Special Ops: Lioness on Paramount+; as well as the independent film The Absence of Eden, directed by Marco Perego, which made its world premiere at the 2023 Taormina Film Festival and will be released in theaters this April from Roadside Attractions. They are represented by CAA, LBI Entertainment, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich, Goodell & Gellman.
