[ad_1]
Although First Look Media is Passionflix’s largest investor, the company’s CEO, Michael Bloom, declined to reveal the size of its stock. (Ms. Musk remains the majority owner of Passionflix.) Founded by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar, First Look is made up of several unrelated entities. There is nonprofit arm focused on investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking. an entertainment studio, TitleHe specializes in prestige films such asSpencer”“spotlight” and “MauritaniaA relatively new division is home to niche streaming services, including Topic.com and Passionflix, focused on crime.
“We totally understand that we’re walking at the feet of elephants,” said Mr Bloom, referring to streaming services for all audiences like HBO Max and Netflix. “But we are not trying to be them. Specialty services like Passionflix have the opportunity to manage a specific audience in a way that big, mainstream retailers don’t.”
Romantic getaway used to be a staple of television. Supported by the miniseries (“spiny birds”, “Hollywood Wives”) is movie of the week (all those moaning Danielle Steel adaptations) in the 1980s and 1990s. But networks largely abandoned these formats in the 2000s. Cost was one reason; The networks also began promoting repeatable crime procedural and reality shows, including the romance-focused “The Bachelor” series.
In last decade, just a smash Most romance novel adaptations have appeared on television. Even less (“foreign” On Starz, “Bridgerton” on Netflix) became a hit.
Ms. Musk said Passionflix was not intended as a cynical way to monetize the streaming boom. On the contrary, he and his two friends, Jina Panebianco and Joany Kane, wanted to make spicy romance television and failed to find a buyer in Hollywood.
“So we had to create a distribution solution,” said Ms. Musk.
Ms. Musk, named after Puccini’s opera, studied cinema at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. After graduating in 1997, he worked for the Canadian production company Alliance before moving to Los Angeles and directed, wrote and produced the film “Puzzled” (2001), with support from Elon. He eventually went on to produce and direct TV movies for Hallmark, Lifetime and ION Television.
But he was disappointed. “I was constantly getting into conflicts with network administrators who weren’t interested in stories about strong women embracing their sexuality.”
[ad_2]
Source link