Jennifer Fox Inks First-Look Deal With Platform One, Steven Soderbergh-Produced Indie Film ‘Ultraluminous’ Among First Projects

Nellie Andreeva

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EXCLUSIVE: Platform Media, a Boat Rocker company, has signed a first-look deal with Oscar-nominated producer Jennifer Fox (The Report, Michael Clayton, Nightcrawler) and her Jennifer Fox Productions.

Under the pact, Platform One, the Los Angeles-based global television production and distribution studio led by founder and chairman Katie O’Connell, will work on Fox and Erin Simon, who recently joined Jennifer Fox Prods. as VP of development and production, on new projects.

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The partners have assembled an initial development slate, led by independent feature film Ultraluminous, based on the novel of the same name by Katherine Faw (Young God), joined by four TV series projects. Golden Globe-nominated SMILF creator, executive producer, director and star Frankie Shaw is set to write and direct Ultraluminous, produced by Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Behind The Candelabra). It would mark Shaw’s feature writing and directing debut.

Ultraluminous, a nihilist revenge tale about a high-end sex-worker who returns to her native New York City after more than a decade abroad, originated at Platform One which had acquired the book for series development. O’Connell and her team showed the book to Fox as IP for potential series but all parties came to the conclusion that the story would be better served as an indie movie. Fox then reached out to Soderbergh, with whom she has a longstanding relationship. Fox spent six years producing with Soderbergh and George Clooney’s production company, Section Eight, working on such titles as Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Informant and A Scanner Darkly.

Also producing Ultraluminous are Platform One’s Elisa Ellis and Zev Borow (Forever, Lethal Weapon), who brought the book to the studio.

While Platform One’s focus is television, the company has shepherded a handful of films, with Ultraluminous as the highest-profile effort to date.

The initial TV projects under Platform One’s deal with Fox include a limited series adaptation of the book The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushne, a 2013 finalist for the National Book Award; and Runaway, a series based on the award-winning Canadian drama Fugueuse, about a teenage girl from a middle-class family manipulated into a world of prostitution by a network of human traffickers. Karyn Kusama (Destroyer, Billions) is attached to both projects as director and executive producer.

Also in the woprks is En Garde, a political comedy written by Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten, and a series based on Naomi Novik’s fantasy novel Spinning Silver. Fox and Ellis serve as executive producers on all projects.

“Jennifer is well-respected for her award-winning approach to filmmaking and we look forward to working with her new company to develop narratives that speak to the compelling themes she is drawn to and have worked so beautifully and successfully in her film career,” said O’Connell Marsh.

At Platform One, Fox and her Jennifer Fox Prods. join two other female-led companies that have deals there, Laura Dern and Jayme Lemons’ Jaywalker Pictures and Dakota Johnson and Ro Donnelly’s TeaTime Pictures.

“I could not be more thrilled to be announcing this deal with Katie and her team at Platform One Media. Katie has always had a vision for auteur independent film making and taking this concept into the world of television series. We have an incredible slate of titles together and I look forward to bringing these projects to our audiences.”

Platform One’s current production slate include a science fiction series from Simon Kinberg and David Weil at Apple, series Rust for Showtime, based on Philipp Meyer’s debut novel American Rust, starring and executive produced by Jeff Daniels and written by Dan Futterman; as well as pilot Rita, also for Showtime, starring Lena Headey and created by Christian Torpe.

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