Shanghai-based Fundamental Films is to co-produce a slate of English-language themed movies.
It will kick off with “China Black Chamber” and follow that with others it has set up with Luc Besson’s (pictured above) Europacorp and with Basil Iwanyk’s Thunder Road Pictures.
“Chamber” is pitched as “an espionage story about the infiltration of the Japanese intelligence in 1938 by an American spy recruited by the Chinese military.”
Fundamental says that the film’s cast will be a combination of top Chinese and U.S. talent and that the packaging is typical of its strategy of making commercial European and American films with budgets upwards of $20 million. Fundamental expects to bring on partners, but retain an equity position and Chinese rights.
The company says that it is working with Thunder Road on the co-production of “A Gang Story,” an English-language remake of the French film “Les Lyonnais,” that will star Liam Neeson; “The Drop” and “24 Hours to Live.”
Fundamental is currently in post-production on animated film “The Prince and the 108 Demons,” which Europacorp is selling internationally. Previously it was financier and producer of Chinese film “Case Sensitive,” and was last year announced as the Chinese buyer of Mandate International’s Steven Soderbergh thriller “Haywire.”