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EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov has signed with Artist International Group for management.
Bekmambetov, who remains repped by WME, most recently wrapped the Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson starring sci-fi feature Mercy for Amazon MGM Studios. Produced by Oscar-nominated producer Charles Roven (Oppenheimer), Mercy is set in the near future when capital crime has increased. The pic follows a detective (Pratt) who is accused of a violent crime and forced to prove his innocence.
The filmmaker broke through with his supernatural action-adventure feature Night Watch which spawned the sequel Day Watch. His first big Hollywood project was the blockbuster Wanted for Universal. That film starred James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, and it grossed $342 million worldwide. He had become smitten with the Screenlife film format by then, and set a five-picture deal for Universal to make films in that low cost format.
That lead to Screenlife film successes including Searching, which grossed $75 million worldwide on an $880,000 budget. Bekmambetov also heads the prolific production company Bazelevs where he has produced films including Missing, Persian Lessons and Unfriended: Dark Web, which grossed $65M worldwide on a $1M budget.
Bekmambetov has percolating an English-language animated feature about iconic Middle Eastern, Balkan and Asian folk hero Hodja Nasreddin. He has aspirations to grow that into an entertainment universe, with a TV animated show, a graphic novel, and a VR experience in the works.
Artist International Group was founded in 2017 by CEO David Unger, with a lean in on global talent and a client list that includes Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anil Kapoor, Gong Li, Fan Bingbing and many others.
