The company that brought us Yanks Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz is morphing, but not in a way that should affect you and I. Unless you and I are fans of Waist Deep and Cry Wolf.
It still won’t affect us but we’d be assholes with very terrible taste in movies. I just wanted to put that out there. What I’m saying is please hate Waist Deep.
Rogue Pictures has been acquired from Universal Pictures by Relativity Media, the firm who once was simply a partner in the enterprise. What this means is that Rogue, one of the really exciting genre companies out there, will seemingly have more freedom and power under this new arrangement. If you haven’t noticed, a lot of the indie and specialty shingles are fading away or becoming truly independent. That’s a good thing, because even though the studios don’t micromanage quite so much on these smaller shingles, they still do it enough to create a weird dichotomy that can inhibit creativity.
Then again, Rogue did release Balls of Fury and The Return.
But the bottom line is that I’m glad to see it sticking around. I love their logo and I feel the brand represents a certain level of cool (thanks almost wholly to Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg), so anything that allows for more prospective quirky greats is fine by me. Surprisingly, Platinum Dunes has withdrawn from the arrangement. Maybe they’re afraid that without Universal’s shroud covering them someone might say no to their inevitable re-imagining of Neon Maniacs.
Sadly, the folks at Rogue still are committed to bringing more Wes Craven properties to the screen.
Andrew Rona, former honcho of Rogue and apparently a super bright guy, is moving over to Silver Pictures where I hope he’ll tug on Joel’s beard and convince him to make more Kiss Kiss Bang Bangs and less Thirteen Ghosts.