Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park Entertainment Group is setting up a multi-million dollar fund for Amritraj's new Hyde Park Asia post.
Acting as a bridge between the film industries of Asia and America, Hyde Park Asia will produce or co-produce three to four films per year, consisting of a mixture of major Hollywood films and cross-cultural titles aimed at a global audience.
The fund will provide approximately SGD $75 ' 100 million of equity and debt for the production of feature films and will be operational in 2008. Hyde Park Asia's offices will be based in Singapore.
"Singapore is the perfect city to base our new Asian offices. Asia has wonderful talent and facilities, along with great growth potential," says Amritraj.
Commenting on Hyde Park's presence in Singapore, Dr Christopher Chia, Chief Executive Officer, Media Development Authority of Singapore said, "We welcome Hyde Park Asia to Singapore, whose presence further strengthens Singapore's position as a media business exchange where new Asia media projects are created, financed and distributed. The establishment of the production fund will undoubtedly boost Singapore's status as a global media city and attract more exciting film projects and talents here. In addition, it sets the stage for more collaborations between Singapore media companies and Hyde Park Asia."
Hyde Park already has films shooting in Asia in various stages of production as previously announced. 'Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li' is based on the Japanese 'Street Fighter' video game franchise from Capcom and will be released by 20th Century Fox. It is currently in production in Hong Kong and Bangkok and stars Kristin Kreuk, Michael Clarke Duncan, Neal McDonough, along with Asian stars Josie Ho (Hong Kong) and Edmund Chen (Singapore).
'The Other End of the Line', a romantic comedy that recently wrapped and will be released by MGM. Featuring an Indian call center operative who travels to the U.S. to meet up with an American guy she has fallen for over the phone, it stars up-and-comer Jesse Metcalfe opposite Shriya Saran, the Indian beauty who worked her way through Indian regional cinema and broke into Bollywood in 2007 after Tamil-language 'Sivaji: The Boss'.
As an East-West conduit Hyde Park Asia will discover new talent throughout the continent and will provide a platform for actors and filmmakers to segue into Hollywood films. Amritraj's popular and critically praised moviemaking reality TV show 'Gateway' on Sony's PIX network in India, has offered fresh Asian-based filmmakers that chance. The winner of 'Gateway' will direct a film for Hyde Park this year.
In India, Amritraj already has a three-picture deal with Adlabs Films, the movie arm of India's most powerful entertainment conglom, Reliance Entertainment. Adlabs may also be involved in co-financing films with Hyde Park Asia.
Hyde Park International, the foreign sales arm of the Hyde Park Entertainment Group, headed by sales veteran Lisa Wilson, will handle all foreign territories. Hyde Park Asia will arrange North American distribution for the company's pictures.
Hyde Park has a first look co-production/co-financing deal with 20th Century Fox. Recent Hyde Park films include 'Premonition' with Sony, 'Death Sentence' with 20th Century Fox, 'Walking Tall' with MGM and 'Bringing Down the House' with Disney.
