Bob Yari & Marvin Peart’s WonderHill Teams With The Georgian Government & Investment Firm Silk Road In Bid To Grow The Number Of Hollywood Productions In The Country
27.11.2023 - 18:41
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Bob Yari, producer of Oscar winner Crash and exec producer on TV series including Yellowstone and The Mayor Of Kingstown, and his WonderHill Studios partner Marvin Peart (The War With Grandpa), are teaming up with the Georgian government and Eastern European and Central Asian investment firm Silk Road Group in a bid to grow the number of Hollywood film and TV productions filming in Georgia.
With direct support from the Georgian government, WonderHill and Silk Road have launched film production and financing JV WonderSilk Studios (WSS), which is also aiming to accelerate local productions.
The aim is to forge public and private partnerships with the government and large companies in Georgia and the region. WSS wants to help pave the way for Hollywood studios and indie film producers to tap into local sites, tax credits (the country has a 20-25% rebate), studios, personnel and talent. To date, Georgia has not developed as a major filming hub in the way some Eastern European countries have, but the ambition is to change that.
Local investment group Silk Road owns Silknet, the largest fixed-line, cable TV, broadband, and IPTV provider in Georgia. The idea is to leverage Silk Road’s infrastructure — including hotels, resorts, casinos, wine estates and ski resorts — and its telcom and media reach — to help drive production business.
WonderHill and Silk Road are also aiming to expand their partnership into Kazakhstan. Their ambition is to have helped facilitate multiple big-budget projects filming in both countries by end of next year.
Yari and Peart (pictured above and below) launched U.S. company WonderHill Studios earlier this year. The duo are co-founders with David Glasser of 101 Studios, producer of Taylor