News

San Sebastian, Spain -- U.S. venture capital fund GC Financial Group has acquired a 25% stake in Barcelona-based Zip Films for €3.7 million, giving it a foothold in Spain from which to launch a European expansion.

"Now we have a base in Europe to take advantage of the financing structure for independent films," GC managing partner Adi Cohen said Thursday. "Zip is our base with the Spanish-speaking film industry, and gives us a place to launch our European entertainment operation."

Cohen said GC would be looking to buy another film company in Germany as part of its strategy.

"In the last 10 years most independent films were financed out of Europe," Cohen said. "We're looking to be in the center of the process, instead of at the end of the food chain."

GC gives Zip access to a $22.4 million in revolving credit as the newly teamed entity looks to become what Cohen calls a "Pan-European,...

Al Pacino, who has long been interested in tackling the character of Napoleon, is on tap to play the French emperor in a screen adaptation of Staton Rabin's children's book "Betsy and the Emperor."

Gc Corp., the venture capital fund headed by Adi Cohen and Joseph Grinkorn, has picked up rights to the project that had been held by the Bob Yari Co. Gc, which will secure financing, has assigned "Betsy" to Killer Films, with plans to begin filming in late autumn.

John Curran ("The Painted Veil") is attached to direct from a screenplay by Brian Edgar.

Producing are Killer Films' Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler as well as Zvi Howard Rosenman, Colleen Camp and Fonda Snyder. Cohen and John Wells will serve as exec produce.

Killer, Curran and Pacino are repped by CAA. Rosenman, Snyder and Rabin are repped by Lynn Pleshette for this project, and Camp is repped by Gersh.

• Looks like Killer Films might once again position themselves in one of those uncomfortable situations where they embark on a project knowing that there is another similar project floating around. Recently I had discussed how they might lose in the first to get the Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg biography out there (their John Krokidas-directed Kill Your Darlings is going up against Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein's Howl) and now they have set up another fatal scenario – it all depends on whether financiers/producers Adi Cohen and Joseph Grinkorn’s Gc Corp. have really been able to acquire “all film and stage adaptation rights” as stated by Variety. Problem is that Killer Film's Betsy and the Emperor might be going up against Napoleon and Betsy – a project pegged with a 2010 start date after actress Emma Watson completes the Deathly Hallows part I and II. Watson would play the titular role of Betsy Balcombe.

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New York-based venture capital fund GC Corp. has inked a deal with Israel-based TV provider Yes and Israeli production company Teddy Production to acquire format rights to the series "Danny Hollywood," about investigative journalists who travel back in time.

"Danny," which recently had its second-season premiere in Israel, centers on three reporters who wind up in the 1960s, where they try to uncover the mysterious death of pop star Danny Hollywood the day before he is to be married.

Killer Films, in which Gc recently acquired a 50% equity stake, will produce and adapt the story for the U.S. market.

Killer's TV credits include Showtime's "This American Life." Gc is managed by venture capitalists Adi Cohen and Joseph Grinkorn.