December Films, the Australian production company based in Melbourne, has changed its name to December Media, securing a multi-million dollar investment deal and a slate of new projects.
December Films has struck an A$15m co-production financing deal against its production slate over the next three years. The investment deal with Australia-based MFM Investment Management represents a major cornerstone to the production capacity of the new entity, December Media.
Established 15 years ago by CEO Tony Wright, December Films has built an international reputation for quality documentary, live action drama and animated children’s television as well as extensive network, distribution and financing relationships across the globe. In March 2011, Realscreen listed the company as one of the top six producers of factual programming in Australia and in the top 100 globally.
“We’re very excited about how this funding commitment with MFM can leverage our company into a new era, building on the things we have a reputation for doing well”, says Tony Wright. “We’re known for high-quality programming and have plenty to build on. Having solid co-production financing behind us vastly increases our capacity to broaden and grow both our factual and drama slates.”
December Films has long been recognised for its large-scale blue-chip historical documentaries, including the four-part $4.5 million series Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery and Revealing Gallipoli and popular factual series Family Footsteps, Chris Humfrey’s Wild Life and Carbon Cops. It has just completed production of Australia On Trial, a $3 million period drama-doc series.
The rebranding to December Media marks a dramatic expansion of the company’s production slate, kicking off with two key developments.
In partnership with UK-based ITV Global and ABC Australia, December Media is pleased to announce the green-lighting of a major new crime/mystery series The Doctor Blake Mysteries. This period drama set in the late 1950s revolves around a local doctor.
Dr Lucien Blake – sharp as a tack and sly as a fox, a conduit of secrets and lies, a moral compass in an age of change, a trusted voice in untrustworthy times, a solver of human riddles, an assessor of death both natural and unnatural, a man cursed with the absolute first-hand knowledge of the scale of man’s inhumanity to man and a detective of dark acts.
December Media is also expanding its factual slate to include 3D and giant screen production, with its IMAX™ production Hidden Universe 3D.
Some of the planet’s most brilliant minds are coming together to create a new generation of incredible telescopes that will explore distant worlds, seek new life forms, and uncover vital knowledge. It’s a quest fuelled by ingenuity but fraught with risk, as scientists attempt to see further, faster and more clearly into the universe than ever before. But if they succeed, they may be able to show us astronomy’s “holy grail” – the very moment the light of the Universe first came on!
This is the first IMAX™ 3D production ever created by an Australian producer. It will be distributed internationally by MacGillivray Freeman, the world’s largest producer and distributor of IMAX™ films. Two other IMAX™ 3D projects are already in the pipeline for 2012-13.
For further information contact Kerrie Theobald on 0417 998 552.
