Deadline Hollywood: Bert Bedrosian and Strong Eagle Media ink deal with Anderson Media Corp, Alchemy

By Bert Bedrosian

Anderson Media Corporation CEO Charlie Anderson and creative executive/executive producer Mike Camello are partnering to formulate a new production and distribution company called Charlie Mike Productions. The newly minted establishment already has inked its first multi-picture deal with Strong Eagle Media, the production company started by The Hornet’s Nest producers Christian Tureaud, David Salzberg and Bert Bedrosian.

Under the deal, Charlie Mike Productions has funded and will distribute Strong Eagle Media’s first two military films Citizen Soldier and Danger Close (the second and third of the company’s military trilogy), both of which are in production and slated to be released in 2016. The former is about Sgt. Eran Harrillan, an African-American patriot who leads his Oklahoma National Guard platoon on several dangerous missions in Afghanistan. Danger Close tells the story of Alex Quade, a gutsy female war reporter who embedded with U.S. Special Operations Forces for years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anderson and Camello serve as executive producers. Alchemy, which recently acquired ANconnect, the former physical distribution arm of Anderson Media Corp., will release both films.


Original article - http://deadline.com/2015/10/als-doc-transfatty-lives-gets-release-date-charlie-mike-productions-established-1201595361/

The Dissolve: Bert Bedrosian Gets Green Light On Next Two Films

By Bert Bedrosian

Last year’s The Hornet’s Nest, a ground-level documentary about Americans in combat in Afghanistan, didn’t do very well in theaters. It did, however, go on to sell more than 200,000 copies within the first six months of its home media release. Our own Andrew Lapin more or less panned the film, saying, “The Hornet’s Nest is exactly the version of the military that the military wants people to see, which means all its earnestness can’t help but feel calculated.” In the process, he drew quite the crowd of angry homophobes to the comment section who felt he wasn’t qualified to write about a film depicting combat because he himself has never actually seen combat, which definitely checks out. Luckily he was swiftly put in his place for being “basically the epitome of a complete dumbass” and hasn’t been seen or heard from again.

We’d like to give a special “thank you” to those angry, homophobic commenters for the page views, and give them a heads-up that, based on the home media success of The Hornet’s Nest, the team behind that film have formed Strong Eagle Media, a production company with the raison d’etre of releasing similar, military-themed movies about people who have definitely seen combat and who are definitely not journalists on the Internet. Per The Hollywood Reporter, The Hornet’s Nest directors Christian Tureaud and David Salzberg are joined by Bert Bedrosian as heads of the company, and will directly oversee its first set of releases. Curiously, former Obama administrator (in the Departments of Defense and Commerce) Wendy Anderson will also work on the company’s films in some capacity.

Up first for Strong Eagle are two Afghanistan-set documentaries, both co-directed by Tureaud and Salzberg: Citizen Soldier and Danger Close. Citizen Soldier uses helmet cameras to give a first-hand telling of the story of Sgt. Eran Harrill, who led his platoon on “dangerous and heroic” missions during deployment. Danger Close, meanwhile, focuses on the work of frontline war reporter Alex Quade, who embedded with the U.S. Special Operations A-Teams.

As it becomes clearer and clearer that people who love watching badass war stuff on their TVs at home will eat up just about anything they can find regardless of pandering or outright propaganda (and then lend their DVDs to their uninterested nephews), it seems more and more likely that movies like these will continue to be churned out. But then again, that is merely the opinion of a lowly Internet journalist who has never even seen combat.


Original article - https://thedissolve.com/news/6133-the-hornets-nest-directors-form-production-company/

BERT BEDROSIAN – FOREIGN POLICY SITUATION REPORT

By Bert Bedrosian

Here’s an interesting one. Wendy R. Anderson, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff to former SecDef Chuck Hagel, and Chief of Staff for Ash Carter during her tenure as the Pentagon’s No. 2 official, is taking her talents to Hollywood. Anderson has taken a gig at Strong Eagle Media, an L.A.-based media company focused on making movies about the U.S. military. She told Variety that “Hollywood and Washington DC have a lot in common. It can be its own variety of competition, where you have teams hoping their idea wins the day, wins the funding.”


For full article visit: https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/26/situation-report-30b-army-deal-announced-more-gitmo-problems-for-the-white-house-iraqi-intel-investigation-iraqi-economy-in-trouble-north-korean-subs-coming-home-pentagon-official-goes-hollywoo/

BERT BEDROSIAN - DEFENSE ONE

By Bert Bedrosian

Ash Carter’s former chief of staff, back when he was Deputy Defense Secretary, Wendy Anderson, has made the leap to Hollywood. Well, awfully close, anyway; Anderson just took a job with California-based Strong Eagle Media, which produces “inspirational military stories,” Variety writes. “The company already has two projects in the works for its military hero series, to be released in 2016, including ‘Citizen Soldier’ and ‘Danger Close.’”


For full article, visit: http://www.defenseone.com/news/2015/08/the-d-brief-august-26-2015/119507/

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: BERT BEDROSIAN – HIGH RANKING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL

By Bert Bedrosian

Buoyed by the DVD success of The Hornet’s Nest, the team behind the war-zone documentary is launching Strong Eagle Media, a production and digital media company that will focus on military-themed films.

Industry veterans Bert Bedrosian, Christian Tureaud and David Salzberg, who previously collaborated on the baseball drama The Perfect Game, are putting together their debut slate, which includes two documentaries — Citizen Soldier and Danger Close — that are fully financed and will be released in 2016.

Sources say the trio has lured high-ranking Obama administration alum Wendy Anderson to join Strong Eagle Media. Anderson served in the Obama administration from 2010 to 2015 in the Departments of Defense and Commerce. (She was deputy chief of staff to Chuck Hagel, chief of staff to deputy secretary of defense Ash Carter—a vocal supporter of Hornet’s Nest—and chief of staff to secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker.) Anderson has already begun working on Citizen Soldier and Danger Close, both set in Afghanistan.

Though Hornet’s Nest didn’t make a big dent at the box office when it was distributed theatrically by Freestyle Releasing ($313,000), it became a critical hit and one of the top-selling documentary DVDs of 2014. Hornet’s Nest sold more than 200,000 units in its first six months on the market, comparable to such Oscar-nominated docs as Virunga and Last Days in Vietnam. It also is the only film ever to be enshrined into the National Infantry Museum at Fort Banning.

Citizen Soldier tells the story of Sgt. Eran Harrill, an African-American soldier who led his Army National Guard platoon on some of the most dangerous and heroic missions while deployed in Afghanistan. Using helmet cameras, the film captures the reality of combat and daily life. The film is being eyed for release during Black History Month.

Danger Close tells the story of Alex Quade, a gutsy female war reporter who embedded with the U.S. Special Operations A-Teams on the front lines of fighting. Danger Close will be released Memorial Day Weekend 2016. Using real footage, Danger Close will take audiences inside clandestine operations and harrowing combat never seen by the public before while offering an intimate and moving perspective to the War on Terror.

Salzberg and Tureaud, who directed Hornet’s Nest, will direct Citizen Soldier and Danger Close.

Given the success of American Sniper, military-themed films have become a hot commodity in Hollywood. TriStar Pictures recently won a bidding war for Shoot Like a Girl: How One Woman’s War Against the Taliban Led to Her Victory Over the Department of Defense. Fox 2000 and Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea‘s Pacific Standard is moving forward on an adaptation of Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield. And Warner Bros. is developing It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War, with Steven Spielberg and Jennifer Lawrence attached to direct and star, respectively.


Read more: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/team-behind-hornets-nest-doc-805922

POLITICO: DESSERT II, HOLLYWOOD EDITION — NEW MILITARY-THEMED FILM PRODUCTION COMPANY

By Bert Bedrosian

“Buoyed by the DVD success of ‘The Hornet’s Nest,’ the team behind the war-zone documentary is launching Strong Eagle Media, a production and digital media company that will focus on military-themed films,” reports The Hollywood Reporter. “Industry veterans Bert Bedrosian, Christian Tureaud and David Salzberg, who previously collaborated on the baseball drama ‘The Perfect Game,’ are putting together their debut slate, which includes two documentaries — ‘Citizen Soldier’ and ‘Danger Close’ — that are fully financed and will be released in 2016.

 
Taken from: http://strongeaglemedia.com/2015/07/politico-dessert-ii-hollywood-edition-new-military-themed-film-production-company/