Tomorrow, we hear is Courtenay Valenti’s last day as Warner Bros. President of Production and Development after we told you first that she was exiting the Burbank, CA lot after a 33-year run.
12.10.2022 - 20:11 / variety.com
Manori Ravindran International Editor Former Warner Bros. Discovery and OSN executives are teaming up to form a new content studio serving the Middle East and North Africa, Variety can reveal. Rise Studios is being set up by industry veterans Emad Morcos, former OSN chief content and commercial officer; Amanda Turnbull, former general manager at Warner Bros. Discovery Middle East, Africa and Turkey; and Amel Farag, former head of content commercial strategy at OSN. Rise will invest in local content and talent in order to launch homegrown film and TV productions on both regional and global broadcasters and streaming platforms.
“We’re really committed to the region,” Turnbull tells Variety. “It’s changing so rapidly: Cinema is having a renaissance in the region, and all the streamers are also piling in. There’s increasing opportunity and complexity across the landscape and fantastic ideas we want to tap into.”
The outfit, which plans to cultivate a network of local producers, launches on Wednesday with five production partners already in place. The outfits are being brought into Rise’s “studio umbrella” through individual cash and equity deals. (Rise invests cash in each company, which gets equity in the wider Rise Studios banner.) Initial production partners include: Egyptian scripted series and movie producer, Partner Pro; advertising creative house ASAP headed by Amin El Masri and film director Sherif Arafa; Lebanon- and UAE-based factual reality specialist Different Productions, headed by Mazen Laham; multi-channel venture Watan Network, overseen by Bassel Khair; and Black Typhoon, headed by Omar Hussein, which is funded for the specific development of original content in Saudi Arabia. Partner Pro produced the
Tomorrow, we hear is Courtenay Valenti’s last day as Warner Bros. President of Production and Development after we told you first that she was exiting the Burbank, CA lot after a 33-year run.
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Industry veterans Emad Morcos, former OSN Chief Content and Commercial Officer; Amanda Turnbull, who was previously General Manager at Warner Bros Discovery Middle East, Africa and Turkey; and Amel Farag, former Head of Content Commercial Strategy at OSN have joined forces to launch Rise Studios.
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