Turner gathers Particular Crowd

NATPE: WarnerMedia-owned Turner Latin America launched a film production and acquisition company called Particular Crowd here at Natpe Miami yesterday.

Tomás Yankelevich

Based in LA, Particular Crowd has a slate of 90 English-language movies for 2020 that will be available on Turner’s flagship Latin American channels TNT and Space.

In addition, the company has signed a deal with the distribution arm of Mexican movie theatre operator Cinépolis, through which it will screen certain Particular Crowd titles in its cinemas in Latin America.

Other movies will be made available in an episodic format on social media, while some will go straight to WarnerMedia’s upcoming streaming service HBO Max.

Particular Crowd originals include sci-fi horror Possessor, directed by Brandon Cronenberg and starring Sean Bean; action movie Guns Akimbo, which comes from Occupant Entertainment and stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter); and animated feature Stardog & Turbocat, voiced by Nick Frost and Luke Evans.

Tomás Yankelevich, exec VP and chief content officer for Turner Latin America, said the idea for Particular Crowd came about two or three years ago in anticipation of the major studios starting to hold back content for their own platforms.

“Even though at that time we had deals with studios, we knew something was going to happen,” he said, adding that the company decided to focus on English-language movies due to their greater potential to travel.

“If we produce in Mexico, for example, even though Mexicans speak the same language as people in Argentina or Chile, movies don’t fly well because countries have different idiosyncrasies. We knew from experience that English, either dubbed or subtitled into neutral Spanish without any accent, would fly very well.

“We want to have an original take on movies that are not being made right now due to the studios deciding to focus on blockbusters. We are focusing on theatrical films and, even though in some cases we are only going to release them for our networks, we are not making TV movies because they will have to live alongside blockbusters that we still license from the studios.”