Just as Columbia TriStar creates a film production company at Berlin’s Babelsberg, US studio Universal is also sharpening its sightson Europe. Universal has initiated conversations to co-produce feature films with the Spanish film industry via the Madrid office of UIP.
Spearheaded by Nadia Bronson, the recently appointed president of international marketing at Universal Studios, and Gualberto Baña, the longtime president of UIP in Spain, the move would see Universal’s Spanish films capitalising on the formidable marketing and distribution apparatus of UIP both in and outside Spain, with Universal acquiring select-territory rights to Spanish movies on a pic-by-pic basis. One option could be to use October Films for US domestic distribution. The movies could be in Spanish or English.
At the Berlinale to meet German industryites, Ted Perkins, director of international distribution and acquisitions at Universal Studios, will be in Spain later this month to continue pow-wowing with Baña and local producers and directors.
«Spanish films are becoming more thematically acceptable and technically adept. A film such as Open Your Eyes, which Warner Bros. picked up for Latin America, is not necessarily Spanish in its take,"Perkins said.
Universal’s multi-pic plans for Spain follows the Spanish-language period epic Doña Barbara, co-produced by UIP in Spain which has rights to Spain, Italy and major territories in Latin-America. John Hopewell