WHAT IS IT?
TaleFlick Productions: Road to Development is a contest open to every TaleFlick subscriber.
In addition to making your stories available to producers and studios, TaleFlick is offering prizes up to $5,000 to the authors of the best ones submitted.
Every purchase made between March 14th, 2024 and April 5th, 2024 puts the story under consideration.
PRIZES
Basic tier
Upgrade to Standard, with full evaluation.
Standard tier
Upgrade to Premium, with a pitch page and active sending to producers.
Premium tier
$5,000 (five thousand dollars) and announcement of winner to producers.
The tier you choose will define your prize, so choose accordingly. You can also upgrade tiers at anytime during the contest - if after getting a good evaluation under the Standard plan you feel like taking a shot at the Premium prize, for example, you can. Learn more about upgrades here.
TaleFlick, the story discovery platform launched by White Noise producer Uri Singer and former Netflix executive George Berry, is expanding into the Middle East, Japan, and South Korea.
The service enables authors of the written word to shop their work for film, TV, and digital media companies.
TaleFlick will accept submissions in an expanded list of languages, including Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, and South Korean.
“We’ve always believed in the universal appeal of good stories,” said Singer, the owner and CEO of Los Angeles-based Passage Pictures. “In these challenging times, bridging the gap between global content creators and the film and TV industry is crucial.
“Our expansion is a testament to our commitment to discovering and amplifying voices from diverse cultural backgrounds.”
The strategic move will also see TaleFlick partner with local producers and studios in the regions to ensure authentic representation and localization of film and television.
“This is just the beginning,” added Singer from the Venice Film Festival, where he is taking meetings. “The world is brimming with tales waiting to be told, and we’re here to ensure they get the platform they deserve. We know that curating quality content takes time: we are expanding now, so when the strike is over, we will have a larger and more diverse library for people to draw on.”
]]>Source: Arab News
DUBAI: TaleFlick, a content curation company specializing in book-to-screen adaptations, has launched its platform in Arabic in a bid to connect local storytellers with international as well as regional producers and studios.
Launched in 2018 by film producer Uri Singer and former Apple and Netflix executive George Berry, TaleFlick aims to provide a platform for untold stories to reach the right producer or studio.
Singer was recommended the book “The King of Oil” by Swiss investigative journalist Daniel Ammann in 2018, and thought it was an amazing story that deserved to be told through a movie.
Singer told Arab News: “There are so many good stories around the world that are not being told or cannot reach people like me, or studios. (I thought) I should open a platform for that.”
Authors and rights owners submit their stories, which are analyzed by an algorithm, and selected manuscripts are further assessed for their adaptation potential by professional readers.
Studios and producers, which are verified by TaleFlick, can search the platform for content by theme or by location.
The platform also holds competitions from time to time. Its most recent contest, for example, will see the company choose stories to develop under its production arm TaleFlick Productions.
Publishers like HarperCollins have committed their catalog to the site, and studios such as Sony Pictures, Warner Media and HBO have signed up as customers.
The rise of streamers and the increase in content consumption go hand-in-hand.
Turkiye, Israel and Saudi Arabia will be the Middle East region’s strongest markets, together accounting for 55 percent of the region’s SVOD (subscription video-on-demand) revenues by 2028, according to a report by Digital TV Research.
The 13 Arabic-speaking countries in the region are expected to generate $2.47 billion in 2028 — up from $1.28 billion in 2022.
People are watching more now than ever before, thanks to the wide library of content and easy accessibility offered by streaming services.
Streamers in turn are investing in growing their repertoire of content — both licensed and original — to keep audiences engaged.
This growth had resulted in a demand for unique and authentic stories from around the world, said Singer.
He added: “Streamers and broadcasters have found out that there is an audience that really appreciates content regardless of where it comes from if it’s good and interesting.”
A prime example of this is the success of shows such as “Masameer County” and “AlRawabi School for Girls” on Netflix, as well as Saudi-backed films like “Jeanne du Barry,” “Four Daughters,” and “Goodbye Julia” making their mark at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
More recently, “Sattar,” a Saudi comedy film, broke box office records, earning $2.2 million over its first 12 days, making it the highest-grossing Saudi movie, outperforming blockbuster “Avatar” by more than 40 percent in terms of admissions, according to media reports.
Local markets know their audience and can make successful local films, surpassing even Hollywood films, which was always the case in countries like France and Spain, said Singer.
Recently, however, local content like “La Casa de Papel” from Spain, or K-dramas have “gone viral” and caught the global audience’s attention, and this is “where we’re going,” he added.
Singer visited Saudi Arabia last year to attend the Red Sea Film Festival and was amazed. He was aware of Vision 2030 and the Kingdom’s financial power and investments.
He added: “I saw the real eagerness to learn, listen and invite people … that’s a very correct thing to do.”
While the Kingdom is making strides, particularly with its various funds, shooting in Saudi is still expensive because of the lack of crew, and the “few professional crews that are working there are taken to the highest bidder,” he said.
That is why Singer is working with film studios to bring below-the-line talent from Saudi to the US as part of an apprenticeship program to “learn the culture of moviemaking,” he said.
Singer, who has worked in various countries, said the American culture of moviemaking is the “best.”
He added: “There’s a lot to learn on set in the US, and that’s what I think is missing; the Saudis are doing everything else successfully.”
Still, with just a five-year-old industry, Saudi Arabia had already made its presence felt on the global film circuit. Stories from other countries in the Middle East are also reaching and appealing to audiences around the world.
While TaleFlick supports other languages, like Hindi and Spanish, it has not invested heavily in them and mainly relies on Google Translate.
Singer said it had made significant investments in its Arabic platform because “the Middle East is so eager, young, and untapped.”
He is acutely aware of the cultural and linguistic differences, even within the region.
He said: “We detect those differences, and we source them (stories) to the right partner.”
The company also has a multilingual team of translators and screenwriters from different countries in the Middle East who not only review the scripts but also understand the cultural nuances and then suggest it to the right partner, Singer added.
Users can sign up to TaleFlick by choosing either basic ($99), standard ($199) or premium ($499).
]]>from Deadline
Netflix is often mentioned as an M&A player when a studio or media group is up for sale, but don’t expect the streamer to buy a major Hollywood business any time soon.
Co-CEO Ted Sarandos, speaking on the company’s second quarter earnings call, said that he’s more interested in buying IP.
“We’ve always looked at these things in terms of the opportunity of IP, versus those assets, some of those assets are stressed for a reason,” he said. “When we would look into our M&A activity, it would be mostly around IP that we can develop into great content for our members, which is our real strength and business. We have traditionally been very strong builders over buyers and that really hasn’t fundamentally changed. But if there are opportunities that give us access to pools of IP that we can develop into and against, that could be super interesting.”
Over the years, other than a handful of small animation businesses and VFX studios, the company has focused on acquiring the likes of Jupiter’s Legacy producer Millarworld, in 2017, StoryBots in 2019, and The Roald Dahl Story Company in 2021.
“We think we’re taking the right course in terms of offering the content to our members and having it around even after its original run on Netflix. The syndication market, the home video markets that continue to exist today are kind of contracting in a way that isn’t too exciting to build up against, versus this opportunity we have to please our members and fill our members with our content all the way back through the history of our content,” he added.
Sarandos added that when sequels and spinoffs launch, it helps drive eyeballs back to previous seasons and films. He highlighted the example of Queen Charlotte driving viewers back to the first two seasons of Bridgerton and the fact that Extraction appeared in its top ten list when the sequel was released.
“It’s a very fluid and dynamic offering in that way and even better, the deeper and richer that library becomes,” he said.
This comes as Netflix has started acquiring syndicated content from its rivals such as Insecure from HBO, as first revealed by Deadline.
From The Hollywood Reporter.
By Mia Galuppo.
Uri Singer will produce 'Low Orbit' from director Nguyen-Anh Nguyen, who describes the project as 'Moon' meets 'In the Mood for Love.'
Agathe Rousselle, the break-out star from the Cannes Palme d’Or winner Titane, will lead the sci-fi drama Low Orbit from producer Uri Singer, who was behind the Netflix adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise.
Low Orbit takes place on a failed colony on another planet, where a romance grows between a female shuttle pilot and the wife of a cryogenically frozen engineer that the pilot has been ordered to transport off planet. The project has been described as Moon meets In the Mood for Love.
Nguyen-Anh Nguyen, the Vietnamese-Canadian director behind popular fantasy and sci-fi shorts The Akira Project and Hyperlight, will direct the project. Adam Bradley co-wrote the scrip with Nguyen.
Singer most recently debuted the Noah Baumbach-directed White Noise at the Venice Film Festival. The Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig-starrer is set to open the New York Film Festival. Singer’s upcoming slate includes another DeLillo adaptation, Underworld, which is set at Netflix with Ted Melfi set to write and direct.
Rousselle is repped by Agence Adequat. Nguyen is repped by Magnolia Entertainment. Singer is repped by Knol Law PC.
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“Low Orbit" is in development already, and details of the process will be seen in upcoming news. Until then, you can submit your own story - a novel, screenplay, graphic novel, short story or article - to be evaluated for adaptation. Click here.
Don DeLillo’s debut novel, “Americana,” is set to be adapted 51 years after it was first published.
“White Noise” producer Uri Singer (“Tesla,” “The King of Oil”) has bought the rights to the 1971 novel, continuing his streak of adapting a string of DeLillo works that have been deemed “unadaptable.”
“Americana” tells the story of David Bell, an out-of-touch television executive who sets off on a road trip with his female colleague, Sullivan, to make an avant-garde film. The book explores the intricacies of corporate culture and examines how we create realities, whether they are true or not.
Singer tells Variety: “When you read ‘Americana,’ you understand how Don developed into the literary icon he is today. It’s the story of an ‘American Psycho’-type of protagonist, minus the murder, in the toxic and cut-throat world of television, with all the extraordinary minor characters that mark a DeLillo work. Where ‘American Psycho’ just shows the protagonist as he is, ‘Americana’ shows the questioning of why he is the way he is.”
Singer’s team at Passage Pictures is developing what he promises to be a “unique take” on the novel, which the veteran producer describes as “‘American Psycho’ meets ‘Marriage Story.’” The film is believed to use a switch in perspective to maintain the story’s relevance without sacrificing the essence of DeLillo’s prose.
“Americana” is the latest DeLillo adaptation for Singer, who is in Venice with Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of “White Noise” for Netflix, which is opening the festival. Another adaptation, this time of DeLillo’s “Underworld,” is also in the works at the streaming giant.
The Israel-born Singer, for whom English was not his first language, is a long-time fan of DeLillo’s work and says he has “continuously [returned] to his works despite the challenge of comprehending them.”
“Don’s incredible writing stayed with me and when I started producing, I realized that by attaching the right talent we could make these stories more approachable while keeping the integrity of characters and storylines Don created alive,” said Singer.
Reflecting on “White Noise,” the producer said the film was first set up at HBO, and was then attached to James Brooks (“The Simpsons”), Barry Sonnenfeld (“Men in Black”) and Barry Josephson at Disney. Scott Rudin later optioned the book for Sonnenfield, with a script from Stephen Schiff.
Singer optioned the rights to “White Noise” in 2016, but it took years to set up “because of the challenge in adapting Don’s words.”
The producer eventually took the book to A24, which helped to attach Baumbach, “a DeLillo fan and the auteur of this great adaptation that’s opening Venice and the New York Film Festival,” said Singer. The project was then sold to Netflix.
In the fall of 2021, Netflix also picked up “Underworld,” with Ted Melfi (“Hidden Figures”) set to direct. The book loosely centers on a waste management executive who endeavors to trace the history of a baseball that made history for the New York Giants in 1951.
“Underworld” is considered by many to be DeLillo’s opus but, at more than 800 pages and with a sprawling narrative structure, tricky to adapt. Singer teamed with friend and director Melfi, whom he considers “the only person who could bring this massive work of art to the screen in a way that would allow more people to understand and enjoy it while still honoring the essence of DeLillo’s writing.”
Elsewhere, Singer has also optioned DeLillo novella “The Silence,” which he bills as a “contained story” that will be written by British screenwriter and playwright Jez Butterworth (“The Ferryman,” “Brittannia”).
Looking ahead, the producer plans to continue mining “compelling narratives and interesting characters,” while building out his books-to-screen platform Taleflick, a portal for international authors and writers to submit stories, books and scripts.
“It doesn’t matter to us whether people deem it ‘unadaptable,’ our motto is if nobody can do it, we can,” says Singer. “Our only trick to doing that is to find smart IP we believe in and surround ourselves with smart people who believe in it like we do,” said Singer.
Singer is repped by Carissa Knol at Knol Law PC. DeLillo is repped by Amy Schiffman at Echo Lake and Robin Straus.
(Pictured: Don DeLillo)
From Deadline
by Andreas Wiseman
The Venice Film Festival will open with the world premiere of Noah Baumbach’s Netflix drama White Noise, starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig.
The film dramatizes a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world. Based on the book by Don DeLillo, and written for the screen and directed by Baumbach, the film is produced by Baumbach, David Heyman and Uri Singer. It marks the first time a Netflix movie has opened the festival.
Also starring are Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy, Sam Nivola, May Nivola, Jodie Turner-Smith, André L. Benjamin and Lars Edinger. The film marks Baumbach’s return to the Lido after he premiered Marriage Story at the festival in 2019.
“It is a great honor to open the 79th Venice Film Festival with White Noise,” festival chief Alberto Barbera said today. “It was worth waiting for the certainty that the film was finished to have the pleasure to make this announcement. Adapted from the great Don DeLillo novel, Baumbach has made an original, ambitious and compelling piece of art which plays with measure on multiple registers: dramatic, ironic, satirical. The result is a film that examines our obsessions, doubts and fears as captured in the 1980s, yet with very clear references to contemporary reality.”
Baumbach added: “It is a truly wonderful thing to return to the Venice Film Festival and an incredible honor to have White Noise play as the opening-night film. This is a place that loves cinema so much, and it’s a thrill and a privilege to join the amazing films and filmmakers that have premiered here.”
The film will be screened Wednesday, August 31, in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema (Lido di Venezia), on the opening night of the 79th Venice Film Festival. Netflix has yet to set a release date.
Baumbach’s films include Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding, Greenberg, Frances Ha, While We’re Young, Mistress America, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Marriage Story and the documentary De Palma.
]]>TaleFlick CEO Uri Singer has secured the film and television rights to God Mode, a Keenspot webcomic created by Chris Crosby.
]]>From Deadline
by Lynette Rice
EXCLUSIVE: TaleFlick Productions CEO Uri Singer has secured the film and television rights to God Mode, a Keenspot webcomic created by Chris Crosby.
Having debuted as an online comic, God Mode has attracted more than nine million readers and hundreds of millions of views. Set in 1995, it follows a feisty Asian-American teenage girlboss who (with the help of her motley crew of high school friends) creates a video game cheat code website that blows up in popularity at the dawn of the internet and becomes acquired by an out-of-touch billion-dollar conglomerate. The webcomic’s artists have included Ryan Kerns, Raven Perez, and Adrian Ramos. Recently, the God Mode franchise expanded into print with a prequel comic book series illustrated by artist Remy “Eisu” Mokhtar from a script by Mike Rosenzweig and Jason Swoboda.
Crosby and Bobby Crosby will executive produce God Mode for Keenspot, whose Marry Me graphic novel was adapted into a feature film from Universal Pictures that starred Jennifer Lopez.
“The story of God Mode is weirdly personal to me,” says Crosby. “When I was barely older than a teenager, I helped create a website that an insane corporation offered to buy for $10 million in cash and stock. Equally insanely, we turned them down. But I’ve always wondered what might have happened if we had sold and become part of a massive corporation, and God Mode was partially inspired by that thought.”
The project is on the fast track and is currently out to showrunners. Singer is executive producing; he is repped by Carissa Knol at Cohen & Gardner. Some of his other producing credits include the upcoming Netflix movie White Noise starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, the Ethan Hawke-led Tesla biopic, and Marjorie Prime starring Geena Davis and Jon Hamm. Singer is currently also attached to produce a film adaptation of Keenspot graphic novel Dreamless.
Founded in 2000 as a pioneering publisher of webcomics, Keenspot is now focused on print comic books with a diverse slate of titles including kids comics, horror, parody, sci-fi, and superheroes. Its book line is distributed by Simon & Schuster.
]]>Source: Deadline
by Peter White
EXCLUSIVE: The Dispatcher, created by author John Scalzi, started life as an Audible original audiobook narrated by Zachary Quinto.
It is now being adapted for the small-screen after producer Uri Singer, the producer behind Netflix’s feature film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s Underworld, acquired the rights.
The Dispatcher takes place in Chicago in a distant future in which it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone – 999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. The ongoing series follows Tony Valdez, a Dispatcher – a licensed, bonded professional whose job is to humanely dispatch those about to die, so they can have a second chance to avoid the reaper. He teams up with Chicago PD detective, Nona Langdon, to help save those at death’s crosshairs and solve the crimes that put them there.
It is written by Scalzi, the former president of the Science and Fiction Fantasy Writers of America, who has written novels including Redshirts and the Old Man’s War series, and who has had three of his short stories adapted as part of Netflix’s Love, Death, & Robots. The streamer is also developing Old Man’s War.
It marks an expansion by Singer, whose other production credits include Ethan Hawke’s Tesla and Geena Davis and Jon Hamm-fronted Marjorie Prime, into sci-fi, having previously developed a niche of turning literary classics into films.
The rights to the novel were obtained from Joel Gotler at the Intellectual Property Group, who reps John Scalzi. Singer is repped by Carissa Knol at Knol Law PC.
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"The Dispatcher" is in development already, and details of the process will be seen in upcoming news. Until then, you can submit your own story - a novel, screenplay, graphic novel, short story or article - to be evaluated for adaptation. Click here.
]]>Uri Singer has secured the rights to The Silence, the latest novel by prolific author Don DeLillo. Singer is currently producing a film adaptation to DeLillo’s highly-regarded 1985 novel White Noise, which Noah Baumbach is directing for Netflix and Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig are attached to star.
Released in October 2020, The Silence tells the story of Super Bowl Sunday in the year 2022. Five people, dinner, an apartment on the east side of Manhattan. The retired physics professor, her husband, and her former student wait for the couple who will join them from what becomes a dramatic flight from Paris. The conversation ranges from a survey telescope in North-central Chile to a favorite brand of bourbon, to Einstein’s 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity.
“I believe obtaining high-quality IP, is the foundation for a good film or TV series, said Singer. “Don DeLillo is a pillar of American literature, and I am so proud and honored to turn his novels to film.”
The project is on the fast track and is currently out to directors.
Singer, who is repped by Cohen & Gardner, will begin production on White Noise this summer in Ohio. His other producing credits include the Ethan Hawke-led Tesla biopic and Marjorie Prime starring Geena Davis and Jon Hamm.
DeLillo is repped by Echo Lake and Robin Straus.
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The Silence is in development already, and details of the process will be seen in upcoming news. Until then, you can submit your own story - a novel, screenplay, graphic novel, short story or article - to be evaluated for adaptation.
Click here.
Uri Singer has obtained the rights to “Invitation to a Beheading,” a surrealist and politically charged work by Vladimir Nabokov, the author of “Lolita.”
Singer has been carving out a niche for himself by developing literary classics into potential films. He recently obtained the rights to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Hocus Pocus” and Don DeLillo’s “The Silence.” He is also producing another DeLillo adaptation “White Noise,” which is currently filming with Noah Baumbach directing Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. Singer is also producing “The King of Oil,” set at Universal, with John Krasinski’s Sunday Night, with Matt Damon attached to play the lead role based on the book “The King of Oil” by Daniel Amman, adapted by Joe Shrapnel and Anne Waterhouse.
“Invitation to a Beheading” embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws, who lug their furniture with them into his cell.
Other Nabokov novels have made their way to screens in the past, with the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne adapting “Lolita” and filmmakers like Tony Richardson (“Laughter in the Dark” and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (“Despair”) putting their spins on the author’s works.
“I am very excited to have the opportunity to adapt ‘Invitation to a Beheading.’ Nabokov once said that out of all his books, while he had the greatest affection for Lolita, he held ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ in the highest esteem,” Singer said. “Nabokov is one of the most famous and notorious writers of the 20th century, and I think ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ is an extraordinary opportunity to adapt a unique literary masterpiece to the screen. We consider this to be like ‘Joker’ in reverse, where a mundane protagonist is surrounded by an illogical world.”
Singer said he is in the process of identifying a director for the movie. The rights to the novel were obtained from Andrew Wylie at the Wylie Agency, who reps Nabokov’s estate.
Singer is repped by Carissa Knol at Knol Law PC. His other producing credits include the Ethan Hawke-led “Tesla” and “Marjorie Prime” starring Geena Davis and Jon Hamm.
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“Invitation to a Beheading" is in development already, and details of the process will be seen in upcoming news. Until then, you can submit your own story - a novel, screenplay, graphic novel, short story or article - to be evaluated for adaptation. Click here.
Uri Singer has obtained the rights to Hocus Pocus by legendary author Kurt Vonnegut. He is developing the 1990 novel as either a film or a limited series.
Singer is currently producing a film adaptation of another literary giant, Don DeLillo’s White Noise, which Noah Baumbach is directing for Netflix with Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig attached to star. He is also producing The King of Oil with John Krasinski’s Sunday Night with Matt Damon attached to play the lead role. That film has been set up at Universal.
Hocus Pocus follows a college professor named Eugene who gets fired after having several of his witticisms surreptitiously recorded by the daughter of a popular conservative commentator. Eugene then becomes a teacher at a nearby overcrowded prison. After a massive prison break, Eugene’s former college is occupied by escapees from the prison, who take the staff hostage. Eventually, the college is turned into a prison since the old prison was destroyed in the breakout. Eugene is ordered to be the warden of the prison but then becomes an inmate, via the same type of “hocus pocus” that led to his dismissal from his professorship.
“Kurt Vonnegut has a massive following and a huge fan base (me included), and I am happy to confront the challenge of adapting his work, keeping the integrity of his wit and humor,” Singer said. “There are multiple ways to crack it, as a feature or a limited series. Regardless of the format, the adaption of ‘Hocus Pocus’ will stay true to the themes of the story while updating it for modern times.”
The rights to the novel were obtained from Katie Cacouris at the Wylie agency who reps Kurt Vonnegut’s estate. The project is currently out to directors.
Singer is repped by Cohen & Gardner. His other producing credits include the Ethan Hawke-led Tesla and Marjorie Prime starring Geena Davis and Jon Hamm.
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Hocus Pocus is in development already, and details of the process will be seen in upcoming news. Until then, you can submit your own story - a novel, screenplay, graphic novel, short story or article - to be evaluated for adaptation.
“The Seventh Function of Language,” a novel by French author Laurent Binet, is getting the feature film treatment. Uri Singer, the CEO of TaleFlick, a production company that specializes in adapting books into movies and TV shows, has obtained screen rights to the popular work of fiction.
Singer will produce “The Seventh Function of Language” with Midnight Road Entertainment’s Vincent Sieber, who previously produced “The Chronicles of Narnia.”
The New York Times described Binet’s novel as being “at once a buddy-cop plot, a fish-out-of-water comedy and a spy thriller.” A whodunit set against the backdrop of 1980s France, “The Seventh Function of Language” centers on a literary critic Roland Barthes, who gets hit by a laundry van and dies after having lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. But as the world mourns his death, one question arises: What if it wasn’t an accident at all?
Binet’s first novel, titled “HHhH,” was the basis for the film “The Man With the Iron Heart,” which was released in 2017. It focused on Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich during WWII, and starred Jason Clarke and Rosamund Pike. His latest novel, “Civilizations,” is being developed as a TV series with Anonymous Content.
Singer, an entertainment industry veteran, is currently producing Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of the Don Delillo novel “White Noise.”
Singer and Sieber are also producing Universal Picture’s upcoming feature film “Rich,” starring Matt Damon. The movie, based on “The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich,” is also being produced by Sunday Night Production’s John Krasinski and Allyson Seeger. Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse penned the script.
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The Seventh Function on Language is in development already, and details of the process will be seen in upcoming news. Until then, you can submit your own story - a novel, screenplay, graphic novel, short story or article - to be evaluated for adaptation. Click here.
Source: LIFF Directors Talk Live
TaleFlick CEO and Producer Uri Singer was one of the guests on LIFF's online event DIRECTOR TALKS on June 18th. He was invited to speak about "Tesla," his latest movie, and about TaleFlick.
You can watch it by clicking on the window above.
Uri appears at the 29:53 mark, and talks about TaleFlick at the 47:13 mark.
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Source: The Economist
TaleFlick has just optioned the rights to "Too Big to Jail," an article on The Economist by Jacob Kushner and Daniel Ammann. It's the story of José Manuel Ramos, a senior member of the Medellín cartel that, in the 1990s, told prosecutors in America and Switzerland he would help them catch cocaine traffickers. Was Ramos really a reformed character? Or did he just tell the authorities what they wanted to hear?
Jacob Kushner is the author of “China’s Congo Plan: What the Economic Superpower Sees in the World’s Poorest Nation,” and Daniel Ammann is an award-winning journalist and the author of “The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich.” Ammann's book has been previously optioned by Uri Singer, Producer and CEO of TaleFlick, and is set to become a film starring Matt Damon and produced by Universal.
"Too Big to Jail" is in development already, and details of the process will be seen in upcoming news. Until then, you can submit your own story - a novel, screenplay, graphic novel, short story or article - to be evaluated for adaptation. Just click here.
TaleFlick, a company that fosters relationships between Hollywood and the publishing world, has just launched “The Marketplace,” an online platform where producers, publishers, agents, and writers can connect. For a fee, authors and publishers can now add their books to a searchable library that is reviewed by studios, production companies, and producers who have registered for access to the service.
“I thought there must be a better way to find good books. Not necessarily bestsellers, but good stories,” said producer Uri Singer, the founder of TaleFlick, who declined to reveal how many books have been submitted to the service. “A platform where anyone, from anywhere in the world, could upload a book.”
Singer also runs a production company called Passage Pictures and has found most of his adapted material through referrals, rather than chasing hot bestsellers. Singer’s producing credits include Marjorie Prime, an adaptation of Jordan Harrison’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play by the same name, and the producer is currently developing White Noise by Don DeLillo, The King of Oil by Daniel Ammann, and The Zero by Jess Walter.
TaleFlick charges writers and publishers $88 per book for a year-long listing and access to its Marketplace. Once uploaded and approved for the platform, the proprietary TaleFlick algorithm crawls all submissions (along with human readers), cataloguing each property and highlighting books for additional exposure in a special "Top Picks" category. For the $399 “Plus” package, the TaleFlick team will also read the book and write a short “pitch page” that sits alongside the listing to appeal to Hollywood readers. Writers always have the option to compose their own pitch page to post alongside the listing.
TaleFlick COO George Berry helped develop the tech side of the company, bringing experience in movie and TV operations for Apple and content operations for Netflix. While building the platform, TaleFlick acquired the rights to 300 books, using these literary works to train the selection algorithm that categorizes the material. “We're not an agent and we're not a publisher. We're a curation platform,” Singer said.
Authors keep all rights to the original work posted on TaleFlick, but the company retains right of first refusal in the bidding process for any book on the platform. If the adaptation goes into production, TaleFlick also takes a 2% commission from the deal—but only if the movie is actually being made.
The service has already inspired some options from producers. FortitudeInternational acquired Nicole Evelina's Madame Presidentess, a work of historical fiction about an almost forgotten woman who ran for the United States presidency in 1872. Fortitude has worked on a number of adaptations, including The End Of The Tour (adapted from Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky), The Tribes Of Palos Verdes (based on Joy Nicholson’s novel of the same name) and The Clapper (based on Eddie Krumble Is the Clapper by Dito Montiel). “I've got my books out there, exposed to these people that I wouldn't otherwise have access to,” she said. “It's very, very hard for indie authors to get this type of connection to Hollywood.”
In May, The Traveling Picture Show Company optioned South of Main Street, a 2005 novel by Robert Gately. “I always had this idea in my head that I was going to write the great American novel,” said Gately. “Today, writers talk about writing the great American screenplay.”
]]>Robert Gately, Author of 'South of Main Street', talks about TaleFlick and his option with TPSC Films.
]]>The online platform TaleFlick, a searchable database of book titles aimed at the entertainment industry, has revealed the latest titles that have been optioned from the platform.
The Traveling Picture Show Company (producers on A Walk Among the Tombstones, The Blackcoat's Daughter) has optioned Robert Gately's 2005 novel South of Main Street, while Passage Pictures (Marjorie Prime, Experimenter) has optioned Michael Bowker’s French Affair: A Paris Love Story, both for film adaptations.
Since the platform launched last August, it has also helped secure options for Carolyn Steele's Queenie's Teapot (at Passage Pictures) and Nicole Evelina's Madame Presidentess and Amie Ryan's Starfish on Thursday (at Fortitude International). The platform, Marketplace, will officially launch this month after initial discussions with industry producers while the platform was in "soft-trial" mode.
“We are proud that TaleFlick is now meeting its goal of being a new way for authors and industry executives to connect and help pave the way for creative, original stories to be made into movies and TV shows,” Uri Singer, CEO of TaleFlick and founder and CEO of Passage Pictures, said Thursday in a statement. “For too long, fantastic stories have not had the proper opportunities to shine and be seen by viewers around the world. With TaleFlick, the industry is experiencing a transformation, as these ‘undiscovered gems’ are now being recognized by studio executives.”
South of Main Street follows an erratic father who is well-known as a friendly figure in his town, but whose actions are increasingly questioned after he loses his wife and one daughter sues him for financial control of his estate. French Affair: A Paris Love Story, set in 1920s Paris, centers on the burgeoning romance between an American journalist and former World War I nurse who help each other heal old wounds while enjoying the city's moveable feast.
Launched by Singer and former Netflix exec George Berry, TaleFlick charges writers $88 to submit materials, which can include books, short stories or other written material and are available for one year on the site. Authors retain all rights to their works but allow TaleFlick to bid on their dramatic rights and submit stories to production companies and studios. According to its founders, the site was launched in order to fulfill a need for original intellectual property in Hollywood.
"By applying the right balance of technology and human experience, TaleFlick can find those stories that are the 'needles in the haystack,' both efficiently and at scale," Berry said when the platform was first launched.
]]>TaleFlick's CEO Uri Singer talks to Ben Crossman of Computer America about TaleFlick and its upcoming Marketplace
]]>TaleFlick's CEO Uri Singer talks to Los Angeles news channel KTLA and discusses some exciting new features coming to the TaleFlick platform.
]]>Source: KTLA5
Producer and TaleFlick CEO Uri Singer joined KTLA5 live via Skype to tell them about how our company is giving writers the chance to put their projects on the big screen.
He spoke about TaleFlick Productions and our current selection of titles, Hollywood's interest in development, TaleFlick Discovery, and the video we put together during quarantine - with special appearances by Philip Elliott (author of Nobody Move), Michael Bowker (author of Gods Of Our Time), Steve Anderson (author of The Losing Role), Nicole Evelina (author of Daughter of Destiny), Heather Grace Stewart (author of The Ticket), James R. Tramontana (author of Ace Tucker Space Trucker), Dustin McKissen (author of The Civil War At Home), and Richard Johnson (author of Dead Drunk).
This segment aired on the KTLA 5 Morning News on May 21, 2020.
Click here to watch the whole interview.
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by Anthony Cawood
Today I catch up with Uri Singer, CEO of TaleFlick, a relatively new service looking to get writers connected with the entertainment industry.
Thanks to Uri for taking time out and providing some great answers and insights.
Read the whole interview here.
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From FilmInk: “TaleFlick has opened a door that I thought had been closed and will be the beginning to a career that I believed had ended.”
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Australian roller skating legend Jayson Sutcliffe, the author of autobiography Rolaboi: Renegade Skater, tells us about his experience with TaleFlick, winning the TaleFlick Discovery contest, and becoming optioned by Fortune Films.
]]>TaleFlick, an online platform that provides writers with a chance to showcase their work to producers and studios, is partnering with HarperCollins Publishers. The collaboration between the companies will allow the publisher to upload thousands of titles across an array of genres, and provide HarperCollins authors the opportunity to have their titles made more accessible to the film industry. The two companies have signed a multi-year contract, according to Uri Singer, a producer and founder of TaleFlick. The deal adds tens of thousands of titles to TaleFlick’s database.
]]>“Marjorie Prime” producer Uri Singer of Passage Pictures and former Netflix executive George Berry have launched TaleFlick, a platform with a searchable library of stories for film, television, and digital media.
“As a producer, I’ve learned the importance of finding strong content and having a reliable source that can provide it,” Singer said. “TaleFlick allows studios and producers, like myself, to find stories that otherwise would not have had a chance to be seen.”
Tuesday’s announcement appears to allow writers to bypass agents and managers in selling material. “TaleFlick bridges the gap between the written word on paper and the spoken word on screen by paving the way for storytellers around the world to shop their content to the entertainment industry,” the statement said.
The platform is for all content — published books, short stories, and any original narrative — and the submission process includes an introductory one-time single-level fee of $88 to cover curation, which makes the content available for one year on the company’s website. Authors will retain all rights to their books, but will give TaleFlick the chance to bid on their dramatic rights and present their stories to studios and production companies.
Singer and Berry have also invested in a new technology utilizing the NLP machine learning algorithm which categorizes and classifies content, curating each piece with an algorithm paired with human expertise.
Berry said, “By applying the right balance of technology and human experience, TaleFlick can find those stories that are the ‘needles in the haystack, both efficiently and at scale.”
The announcement, citing research commissioned by the Publishers Association and produced by Frontier Economics, also said film adaptations of books gross 44% more at the U.K. box office and a full 53% more worldwide than films from original screenplays.