‘Chivalry’ Producer Richard Johns Launches Argo Movies – Deadline

British producer Richard Johns has launched a brand new label, Argo Movies.

Johns is greatest recognized for the 2000 Academy Award-nominated indie horror flick Shadow of a Vampire and several other different movies, is debuting with a slate of tasks and The Shepherd, a accomplished quick for Disney+.

The Shepherd, starring John Travolta and Ben Radcliffe, relies on the novel by Frederick Forsyth and adopted the story of a pilot flying house solo for Christmas in 1957. Iain Softley (Backbeat, Hackers) wrote and directed, and Alfonso Cuarón and Invoice Kenwright are co-producers.  

Argo can even home scripted property and improvement tasks from Corona Footage and Corona Tv, the companies Johns established with Rupert Jermyn in 2009 that produced teen horror Reality or Dare and Tim Roth-starrer The Legal responsibility and whose TV arm acquired funding from Fremantle. Johns bought Jermyn’s share of the property when the latter left the business in 2019. 

Tasks embrace a number of unnamed worldwide drama co-productions, a few of which have community backing. TV tasks comprise a “landmark drama”; a restricted sequence about household and id, based mostly on actual occasions; and an unique dramedy sequence from screenwriter Daniel Hayes (Vs.) that follows “a younger lady, an outsider, struggling to determine which tribe she most aligns with in life.” Options embrace a brand new work from director E. Elias Merhige.

Johns is greatest recognized for characteristic movies however just lately returned to TV manufacturing, the place he began his manufacturing profession, as line producer for Steve Coogan and Sarah Solemani Channel 4 comedy-drama Chivalry. Most Argo tasks might be geared in direction of TV however the firm unhappy it take “a media-agnostic place for tasks on the outset, first figuring out how greatest to inform the story.” 

“Argo is about taking dangers,” mentioned Johns. “There’s loads of protected stuff on the market already and that’s not me: I’m keen about creating ‘filmic TV’ that breaks new floor. Argo will at all times be genuine, distinctive, and various in each sense of the phrase – efficiently crossing typical boundaries. I even have a comfortable spot for finely crafted restricted sequence, so count on to see a variety of these in future bulletins.”

Johns plans to work with UK expertise in areas – the areas of the UK exterior London – and mentioned he was “on a mission to search out and nurture new voices who might help create shocking, unique content material.”

His TV profession began in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, establishing Pilgrim Movies. It was one of many UK’s first indies, it produced commercials and scripted and unscripted programming for the Tyne Tees, Yorkshire TV and Granada franchises. He later teamed Bharat Nalluri and Neil Marshall to provide his first characteristic movie, Killing Time, and was extra just lately supervising producer for Invoice Kenwright’s Off the Rails, starring Dame Judi Dench, Kelly Preston and Ben Miller.